ISSUES AND RELATED MATERIAL FOR PRM-11 TASK 3 DRAFTING GROUP

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79M00095A000400010006-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 96
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 10, 2004
• Sequence Number: 6
• Publication Date: April 18, 1977
• Content Type: MF

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The Director of Central Intelligence
Washington, D.C. 20505
Intelligence Community Staff 18 April 1977
ICS 77-2142/a
MEMORANDUM FOR:
FROM
irec or or Pertormance Evaluation
and Improvement
SUBJECT Issues and Related Material for PRM-11
Task 3 Drafting Group
Enclosed are three pieces I wish to submit for the "issue
definition" phase of our activity:
a. Issue Papers - This is a collection of issue
papers, with a front piece, prepared for a meeting of
the DCI-chaired Task 2 Subcommittee, which never
considered it. Were I to start a new list of issues
from scratch right now, I would come out pretty much
the same. (Tab A)
b. Draft: The Roles of the DCI and US Intelligence:
An Organizational Analysis - This is a draft of the first
three parts of the Task 2 report annex. Part IV,
Assessment, will await comments from within the Community
on the first three. My instructions are that it will
back up whatever the DCI hammers out as a very short
main submission on Task 2. In the meantime, I offer
it on an "Eyes Only" basis to stimulate Task 3 thinking.
(Tab B)
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C. The Intelligence Community Staff's "Semiannual
NSC Intelligence Review" - All of you have probably
received, but I will bet not all have read, this report.
I offer it up as one basis for deliberating on how
product quality relates to all the other issues with
which we have to grapple. (Tab C)
Attachments:
Tab A - Issue Papers
Tab B - "The Roles of the DCI and US
Intelligence: An Organizational
Analysis"
Tab C - "Semiannual NSC Intelligence
Review"
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Ditribution:
1/Original - PRM-11 Official
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1 - IC Registry File, wio Cii;&)
1 - D/OPEI Chrono, w/o atts
File, w/Tab 4/1ME B
4/18/77)
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The Roles Role3 of the DCI. and U.S. Intelligence:
ATI Organizational Analysis
PRM-1l, Task 2 Annex
CONTENTS
Executive Summary [forthcoming]
I. Introduction [attached]
II. Basic Criteria for Organizational Judgment [attached]
III. The Roles of the DCI [attached]
IV. Assessment: Major Problem Areas and How They Relate
to Structure and Authority [forthcoming]
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The Role of the DCI and US Intelligence: An Organizational
Analysis Parts I and II
I. Introduction
In PRM/NSC-11, the President directed a thorough review
of the missions and structure of US intelligence entities with
a view to identifying needed changes. As part of this review,
the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) was directed to
analyze his own role, responsibilities, and authorities. This
report responds to that task.
In order to understand fully the present role of the DCI
it is necessary briefly to examine the total context of US
intelligence activities in which that role is performed, a
context that embraces intelligence organizations collectively
known as the Intelligence Community (IC) and many other
elements of government.
US intelligence is a kaleidoscopic foreign information
activity that encompasses many organizations, a wide diversity
of information sources and handling techniques, the total
spectrum of topical problems presented by the outside world,
and a broad and varied array of users for whom intelligence
is developed. (Several Figures displaying the IC structure
will be included.) A formal activity of government,
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intelligence is distinguished from other forms of foreign
information development by three main characteristics:
a. It involves systematic collection, by human
agents and technical means, of information other govern-
ments attempt to keep secret.
b. It involves systematic correlation and analysis
of all pertinent information, including both data
collected by secret means and publicly available
information.
c. It involves systematic dissemination of result-
ing data and judgments to those who need them to make
decisions or to conduct policy actions.
These three characteristics of intelligence are the vital
steps in a complex intelligence process. That process involves
many identifiable but overlapping steps (a Figure will display
steps, organizations, disciplines):
a. identification of user needs for information;
b. specification of intelligence requirements
and priorities for collection entities;
c. tasking and operating collection entities
in accordance with these requirements and priorities;
d. processing collected data into usable information;
e. correlation and analysis of reported information
to produce factual comment or understanding of an intelli-
gence problem;
f. production and dissemination of a final product.
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This process may take place in minutes or it may take years,
depending on the intelligence problem involved and the resources
at hand for solving it.
Wherever
interactions
This process
it takes place, this process
compels complex
among individuals, organizations, and machines.
must be managed in two senses: Existing resources
must be focused on and interconnected for the solution of
existing intelligence problems, which include the task of
keeping a watchful eye on the "unknown problem" or warning.
At the same time, plans, programs, and budgets must be pre-
pared and decided on that will assure the availability of
resources in the future to solve anticipated intelligence
problems; here the lead-times involved in assembling some
technical and human tools may reach out as far as ten years
or more.
Despite its being a relatively discrete and identifiable
activity, US intelligence is distributed among a large number of
government organizations. Thus, the term Community is commonly
used in discussing it. Bureaucratic history explains the present
distribution of US intelligence activities to
more fundamentally this distributed condition
arises from the very nature of the business.
some extent. But
of US intelligence
All the diverse
entities of government involved in foreign and national security
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affairs need intelligence. Those entities all, in varying
degrees, produce intelligence or generate information directly
useful to intelligence. And the intelligence process itself
is highly diversified, either requiring or accepting a diver-
sity of organizational contexts for doing different parts of
the business. Although it passed several major organizational
milestones since World War II, US intelligence has, in the
main, evolved organically to accommodate this need for or
fact of diversity.
Intelligence can be thought of as a service industry in
government, serving a great variety of customers with greatly
varying needs. At the very origins of post-war US
intelligence, Congress and the President responded to a
strongly perceived need to create unity amid this diversity
to some degree and with respect to some problems of intelligence.
The Office of the DCI and under him the Central Intelligence
Agency (CIA) were created to afford a degree of unity -- as
well as some independence from the policy process -- with
respect to information and judgment on intelligence
questions of national importance. In the intervening years,
the size and diversity of US intelligence has grown. But so
also have the pressures for unity amid diversity. As the
nation's senior, full-time intelligence functionary, the DCI
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has been the focus of these pressures. He is the President's
principal advisor on foreign intelligence; and national
intelligence of preeminently Presidential concern is produced
under his authority. He has come to preside over Community
mechanisms that decide how to use major technical collection
capabilities on a day-to-day basis. Since the November 1971
directive of President Nixon, he has been increasingly
expected by the President and the Congress to be the guiding
authority with regard to programs and fiscal resources of US
intelligence entities specified as national.
The purpose of this report is essentially to describe and
assess these unifying roles of the DCI, along with other, in
some respects conflicting, roles he has. Such an assessment
of the roles of the DCI is essential to deciding anew the
more basic questions:
a. What degree, extent, and kind of unity should
be sought in the inherent diversity of US intelligence?
b. Who should be responsible for it and with what
powers?
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The role of the DCI is anchored in a direct line of
authority from the President and his advisory body, the National
Security Council (NSC), to the DCI to the CIA. This line orig-
inated with the office of the DCI and is unambiguous.
Surrounding this direct line, however, are a host of vital
relationships with other entities of the Executive Branch
who generate and receive intelligence. These other relation-
ships do as much to shape the role of today's DCI as does his
line command of CIA. For many years CIA has been highly
dependent itself on them. In recent years, they have even
strained the DCI's relationship with CIA.
Of these other relationships, that with the Department of
Defense (DOD) is the most involved. Indeed, characterizing this
relationship goes a long way toward defining the role of
today's DCI. It shall be treated further in following sections.
Here it should be noted that:
a. The DOD is the most voracious consumer of
intelligence, by volume, from the Community of agencies
over which the DCI has responsibility. Its needs for
intelligence approach those of the entire government in
scope and variety. And, of course, many of its needs
arising from force planning and operational action
responsibilities are large and unique.
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b. Much of the raw intelligence on which the
performance of the DCI as intelligence producer
depends is collected and processed by intelligence
elements within the DOD.
c. Defense intelligence production entities, in
addition to supporting DOD consumers, play a major
role in the development of national intelligence
judgments through the National Foreign Intelligence
Board (NFIB) and national estimates. In many areas
of analysis, their contributions are unique.
d. Because some 80 percent of the National
Foreign Intelligence Program (NFIP) is located in the
DODi it is with the intelligence authorities of this
department that the DCI and his Community staff must
interact most intensely to develop the consolidated
NFIP and budget for which he is responsible.
e. It is in the relationship with DOD that the
interwoven complex of national, departmental, and
tactical intelligence needs and capabilities arises
most sharply to complicate the definition of the DCI's
role. The DOD possesses the largest assortment of
entities that could be described by each or all of
these adjectives.
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f. In the event of war, the DCI's role could conflict
with that of the Secretary of Defense.
Although not as ramified, the DCI's relationship with
the Department
reporting -- a
gence -- makes
intelligence.
of State is also vital. Foreign Service
form of collection not identified as intelli-
a major contribution to political and economic
State in Washington
and the Ambassador overseas play key roles in approving the
conduct of sensitive clandestine operations. State is also
a heavy consumer of foreign intelligence, and its Bureau of
Intelligence and Research (INR) both contributes to 'national
intelligence judgments and produces unique political analyses.
Small in size and specialized in interest, the intelligence
elements of the Treasury Department, Energy Research and
Development Agency (ERDA), and Federal Bureau of Investigation
(FBI) flesh out the formal intelligence relationships of the
DCI's Community. They and the departments they serve have
increased in importance as intelligence has had to diversify
into new areas of international economics, nuclear prolifera-
tion, terrorism, and drug control.
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II. Basic Criteria for Organizational Judgment
In understanding or structuring any management system, a
first task is to establish the functioning spheres of responsi-
bility and authority, and their limits -- essentially how the
cloth is divided. The second task is to establish how and to
what extent that cloth is sewed back together in order to
overcome the negative aspects of necessary divisions of
responsibility and to make the parts function as a whole.
This challenge is very large in US intelligence because of
institutional and functional diversity and the countervailing
necessity that the parts interact as a whole.
One approach frequently used to rationalize Community
structure is to argue distinctions between national, depart-
mental, and tactical intelligence. This tripartite formula
arises largely from the relationship of the DCI and the DOD,
but has pale reflections in the intelligence-related functions
of other departments, e.g., in the reporting of Foreign Service
Officers or Treasury attaches. This formula has serious
weaknesses and frequently confuses more than it clarifies.
Defining the terms usually obliges use of other terms left
undefined. For example, it is said that national intelligence
is that intelligence needed by the President, the NSC, and
senior US officials to make national policy decisions. But
what are national policy decisions? They are decisions those
officials want and are able to make.
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Now
The essence of the organizational problem in intelligence
is that these concepts overlap extensively in meaning at least
some of the time. The needs of consumers overlap. The
President is always interested in broad assessments of Soviet
foreign and military policy. In a crisis at sea, he is likely
to be interested in the exact location of specific naval
combatants. By the same token, a field commander or foreign
mission chief needs broad strategic assessments. The uses
to which a given intelligence fact or judgment can be put
also overlap in the tripartite formula. An assessment of
the hardness of Soviet missile silos can be of direct value
to the operational planner of strategic strikes, to the force
planner, to strategy and national policy planners, and to the
arms controller. The President is likely to be interested
in all these applications. The organizations and systems
that collect intelligence data also overlap the categories
of national, departmental, and tactical. This is particularly
true with emergent space-based reconnaissance systems when
a given system may monitor arms control agreements,
supply warning, and support tactical
military operations.
Thus, the key organizations and systems of US intelli-
gence can or do play extensively overlapping roles at
different times. Although only imprecisely, one can
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Nagy
distinguish among primary and secondary missions in terms of
the national, departmental, and tactical formula. But this
only resolves the easy cases, leaving a large middle ground
for argument and a poor basis for organizational judgment.
Organization is about management, and management is
about basic purposes and standards of performance. Organiza-
tional judgment must be based on a clear understanding of
basic performance criteria that do or should govern US
intelligence. Three such criteria are propriety, effective-
ness, and efficiency.
Propriety demands that US intelligence be conducted in
conformity with the legal and political standards of our
country as interpreted by proper authority. In today's
conditions, propriety may tend to conflict with effectiveness
and efficiency by restricting certain means of collecting or
using intelligence or forbidding the collection or use of
certain kinds of intelligence. It tends to conflict with
intelligence requirements for secrecy on which effectiveness
and efficiency depend. Assuring the propriety of US intelli-
gence in appropriate balance with conflicting considerations
is not essentially a matter of organization, although clear
lines of command and management responsibility ease this task.
This is essentially a matter of:
a. establishing a sound environment of law
and regulations.
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b. establishing sound oversight or policing
mechanisms within and outside intelligence organizations.
c. cultivating appropriate professional and
management values within intelligence entities.
Establishing the demands of propriety on intelligence and
assuring that they are met is a matter demanding careful
thought and high-level decision. But because few organiza-
tional issues are raised, this subject will not be treated
extensively in this report (see pp. ).
The concept of effectiveness in intelligence management
has many dimensions. It is output or product oriented. It
is therefore preoccupied with consumers, who they are, what
they need, when they need it, and why they need it. As
indicated above, US intelligence serves a great variety of
consumers with a great diversity of needs. Within the
Executive Branch they can be arrayed in terms of the following
rough hierarchy:
a. The President, the NSC, and Cabinet-level
decisionmakers; those who decide the policies of
the Administration on foreign, military, arms
control, and foreign economic matters, and on
crisis management.
b. policy and strategy planners, option
developers; force posture, major program and budget
developers, planners of negotiations; those who
present the Presidential and NSC level with structured
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c. central implementers of policy and operational
planners in foreign, military, and foreign economic areas.
d. field and tactical decisionmakers; policy or plan
implementers, e.g., diplomats and military commanders.
These kinds of intelligence consumers are found, of course,
in the main departments of the US national security establishment,
the Executive Office of the President and the NSC Staff, State,
Defense, the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA), but also
in most other departments and several regulatory agencies to a
lesser degree. One must also count Congress as a substantial
consumer of intelligence, and, to a degree, the public which, by
fair means or foul, receives a substantial amount of its informa-
tion about the world indirectly from US intelligence. Finally,
because it must store up information and analysis to meet future
or unexpected needs, intelligence is itself a major consumer of
intelligence end products. But service to the policymaking
entities of the Executive Branch is the measure of effectiveness
in intelligence. Their needs for intelligence are without limit
in principle and constantly growing in practice. They touch upon
all areas of the globe and embrace most fields of human knowledge.
It should also be noted that very few consumers of intelligence
have any direct responsibility for or even contact with the man-
agement or allocation of intelligence resources. For most
consumers at all levels intelligence service appears as a "free
good," however satisfactory or unsatisfactory the supply.
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Effective service or output to intelligence consumers
dictates a number of organizational principles:
a. The service or output end of intelligence
must be highly diversified and relatively specialized
to meet the diverse special needs of consumers. This
means a need for specialized intelligence production
support to departments, agencies, subcomponents,
commands, etc. -- size, scope, and level depending
on the case. The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA),
INR, the Foreign Technology Division of the Air Force,
and ERDA's intelligence element are examples of the
level of support to departments.
b. The President, the NSC, and, for that matter,
all other major consumers need some source of intelli-
gence that is independent of policy institutions and
broadly competent. This principle justifies CIA's
role as a producer of finished intelligence.
c. To the extent practicable and consistent with
security, the system must fully share information within
itself. To the maximum extent possible, all output
entities in a given subject area should share the same
data and analysis.
d. This diverse output Community must have means
to come together to render a collective judgment or
disciplined disagreement on vital intelligence issues.
This is essentially what national estimates and like
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Of course, effective intelligence support to consumers depends
on a great many considerations other than organizational
structure. But the output structure of US intelligence must
reflect the above principles to be effective at all.
The criterion of efficiency in US intelligence is
concerned with resource inputs, the processes whereby they
are employed, and their impact on output. After several
decades of "organic growth" during the Cold War, concern for
efficiency in Community-wide resource management is a
comparatively recent phenomenon, accompanying
general skepticism about national security spending and a
downturn over the last half-dozen years in real outlays on
intelligence. Critical scrutiny of intelligence behavior
by government and public has intensified the concern with
efficiency in the last three years. In the 1970s, two
Presidential initiatives relating to Community authority
structure, in 1971 and 1976, were both wholely or partly
directed at improving the efficiency of Community resource
management.
Efficient management of intelligence resources proceeds
in two connected dimensions. Existing resources must be
optimally deployed and operated to meet existing intelligence
needs according to a priority scheme that managers can base
predictions on but that is still flexible. At the same time and
largely by the same set of managers, decisions must be made as to
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what magnitude and mix of resources should be mobilized for
the future. How these two kinds of decisions are reached in
the Intelligence Community will be discussed in the next
section (see pp. 1. 'Again, however, some atterript to state
first principles can help to understand and judge present arrangements
At the outset, it should be recognized that, whatever
the deficiencies of intelligence analysis and its management
may be, intelligence resource management is largely a matter
of managing collection and processing resources because that
is where most of the money and manpower are. Duplication or
gaps in the development and use of these resources are more
costly in fiscal terms than in analysis and production.
Another significant point -- a commonplace to involved
professionals but not always appreciated by others -- is
that many collection assets are developed to gain broad
access (e.g., a broad area imaging system) or potential access
(e.g., an agent with a
clandestine posture).
promising future or a regional
Broad access systems require exten-
sive selection and processing for useful data. The ratio
of useful data to all data collected is almost always low;
and the ratio of useful data collected to useful data
identified and exploited can hardly ever be one. Potential
access capabilities may or may not yield as anticipated.
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Moreover, intelligence is a subtle, usually non-violent,
but nevertheless direct form of human conflict. Those managing
intelligence resources are in reality doing battle with other,
frequently skillful, human beings whose main aim in life is to
frustrate the formers' efforts. These conditions challenge
the quest for efficiency, but should induce a certain modesty
in one's goals.
In terms of structure, efficient management of current
resources against current needs means giving control to the
party with the incentive to seek and the capability to
approximate the optimal allocation. To the extent intelligence
collection and processing resources are expensive and scarce,
relative to perceived needs, there is a legitimate tendency
to centralize control. But equally legitimate factors limit
such centralization of control. Control may need to be
contingent on changing conditions in the case of capabilities
with varied application. Thus arises the question of shift-
ing control of certain collection assets from the DCI in
peace to military authorities in war. Some collection capa-
bilities, such as tactical reconnaissance organic to combat
forces, are justified solely for the contingency of war
support to those forces and must be controlled and subordinated
accordingly. Some degree of decentralization is reasonable
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in intelligence processing, e.g., photo interpretation, signals
analysis, document translation, to achieve focus and promptness
in the service of analytic users.
Assigning responsibility for programming future intelli-
gence resources for efficient satisfaction of future needs is
essentially a matter of deciding what should be traded off
against what to maximize what value. What should a given
program element compete against in order to justify itself?
And against what primary value? Desirable multipurpose capa-
bilities may have to compete simultaneously in several
trade-off and value markets. This logic would insist that
the DCI and the main departmental custodian of intelligence
assets, DOD, should be running materially different resource
trade-off markets. The DCI should be expected, in the main,
to trade off intelligence resources against other intelligence
resources. The DOD should, by and large, be expected to
trade off intelligence resources against military forces
and support programs.
Here it should also be noted that the care and incentives
applied to the trade-off of interest may vary with the size of
the intelligence package relative to the market place in which
it competes. The DCI market place is 100 percent intelligence.
The DOD market place is less than 5 percent intelligence.
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The quest for efficient intelligence resource management
involves a built-in tension between what might be called
"autocratic" and "democratic" necessities. Of course, some
technical collection systems must receive a single set of
unambiguous instructions by their physical nature. Imaging
satellites are the most striking example. To that extent,
they oblige an "autocratic" control regime.
There is a temptation to argue that a single authority
could maximize resource management efficiency by overriding
bureaucratic conflicts to force unpalatable trade-offs. But
one must remember that the essence of intelligence management
at the Community level is tying together a diversity of
"outlets" serving diverse customers and a diversity of primary
suppliers or collectors. If one could construct a model that
perfectly captured and forecast the entire scope, all the
details, and all the interconnections of this environment,
then there would be no resource management problem to be
resolved and any bureaucratic structure would do. The model
would manage it. But such a model does not exist. Rigorous
analysis can be applied to help resolve some subsets of the
larger decision set. But it is dominated by areas where judg-
ment, experience, intuition, and conflict among reasonable but
different interests reign. Because no single authority, be it
individual or group, can capture the reason inherent in this
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diversity, the Community must afford a "democratic forum" in
which this reason can suitably inform current allocations and
future programs. It is the role of central authority to
assure that the forum exists, to extract reasoned judgment
rather than simple majority will from it, and to resolve
persistent disputes. This need to balance between "autocracy"
and "democracy" in intelligence resource management inheres
in the nature of the intelligence function, no matter what
the organizational or authority structure of the Community.
Finally, the mechanism for intelligence resource manage-
ment must encourage innovation and experimentation. Too
fanatic a search for efficiency can lead to a tight manage-
ment culture that suppresses the innovations on which
improved performance depends.
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III. The Role of the DCI: A Critical Summary
are:
This section examines ten key roles of the DCI. They
a. Principal advisor to the President and the
National Security Council (NSC) on foreign intelli-
gence affairs;
b. Producer of national intelligence;
c. Head of CIA;
d. Leader of the Intelligence Community;
e. Protector of the security of intelligence
sources and methods;
f. Participant in US counterintelligence
policies and activities;
g. Guarantor of the propriety of foreign intelli-
gence activities;
h. Coordinator of liaison with foreign intelli-
gence services;
i. Spokesman to Congress on foreign intelligence;
j. Spokesman to the public on foreign intelligence.
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DCI roles are an assemblage of responsibilities, powers,
policies, actions, and implementing institutions. In discussing
each role, this section will attempt to identify its basis in
law, executive order, NSC Intelligence Directive, etc.; explain
what the role consists of and what organs &re involved;
describe its problems, shortfalls, and tensions; and explore
where relevant its implications for Community structure.
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III. A. Principal Advisor to the President and the NSC on
Foreign Intelligence Affairs
This role derives from Section 102(d), 1 and 2, of the
National Security Act of 1947 which defines the duties of
CIA and, thereby, those of the DCI to the NSC and, thereby,
to the President:
(d) For the purpose of coordinating the intelligence
activities of the several Government departments and
agencies in the interest of national security, it shall
be the duty of the Agency, under the direction of the
National Security Council --
(1) to advise the National Security Council
in matters concerning such intelligence activities
of the Government departments and agencies as
relate to national security;
(2) to make recommendations to the National
Security Council for the coordination of such
intelligence activities of the departments and
agencies of the Government as relate to the
national security;
The intelligence advisory and coordinating roles defined
by the 1947 Act were not given to the DCI as separate from
CIA, but lodged in the CIA and, thus, made responsibilities
of the DCI. Executive Order 11905 specifies this role for
the DCI directly; he shall "act as the President's primary
advisor on foreign intelligence . . ."
[Relevant NSCIDs, Congressional authority?]
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The role of the principal advisor includes:
a. Presentation and discussion of intelligence
in meetings of the NSC and its committees, now the
Policy Review Committee (PRC) and the Special
Coordination Committee (SCC), and with the President
directly;
b. Advising on sensitive intelligence operations
in the SCC and with the President directly;
c. Advising on intelligence policy and resources
generally in the NSC arena, a role that now overlaps
with the DCI's role as Chairman of the PRC (Intelligence)
the Committee on Foreign Intelligence (CFI) under
E. 0. 11905.
As an observer and advisor to the NSC, rather than a
statutory member, and by the traditions of intelligence, the
DCI is not a formal participant in formulation and decision
on US national security policy. But the distinction between
intelligence advice and policy counsel in small, high-level
debates can become blurred, especially during crisis situations
Some DCI's have been relatively direct participants in the
policy process at the NSC level, others more distant in their
advisory role. The way this role is played depends in large
measure on the personal relationship of the DCI with the
President and other senior members of his Administration.
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Several recent Directors have emphasized the importance of
direct contact and close rapport between the DCI and the
President.
As an advisor on substantive intelligence, the DCI
draws his main support at present from his staff of National
Intelligence Officers (NI0s) and the Intelligence Directorate
(DDI) of CIA. But other analytical components of the
Intelligence Community may be the source of information on
the subject at hand. Non-CIA elements of the Community fear
to some extent that the DCI's personal intelligence input
to high-level policy deliberations is too much a monopoly of
CIA by virtue of the DCI's physical location and line rela-
tionship with CIA. At the same time, State and Defense
elements of the Community can have a direct influence in
this arena by informing the views of the Secretaries of
State and Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff.
Especially as it is linked with a responsibility for
substantive intelligence production, the DCI's role as
principal advisor has important implications for Community
structure. It makes him the senior, full-time functionary
of the Executive Branch in the area of foreign intelligence.
It places an officer with executive responsibility over a
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key intelligence agency and substantive responsibility for any
intelligence issue of top-level interest in direct contact
with the President, not reporting through a Cabinet member.
To the extent there is perceived a need for someone to
organize and manage the intelligence affairs of the US govern-
ment as a whole, there results a natural tendency to look to
the DCI. This tendency has been manifest in the November 1971
directive, E. 0. 11905, and Congressional sentiment.
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III. B. Producer of National Intelligence
The DCI's role as producer of national intelligence
originates with the duty given the CIA in the National Security
Act of 1947 to "correlate and evaluate" intelligence available
anywhere in the US government. E. 0. 11905 merely states that
the DCI shall "provide [the President] and other officials of
the Executive Branch with intelligence, including National
Intelligence Estimates (NIEs), . . ." [Cite NSCID old and new]
Defining this DCI role often becomes mired in a fruitless
effort to define national intelligence as distinct from other
forms, such as departmental or tactical. In principle,
national intelligence is not distinct from these other forms
but a whole that is greater than the sum of the parts. Its
hallmarks are that it:
a. Addresses the needs of the President,
the NSC, and other high-level decisionmakers.
b. Incorporates all relevant information and
sources available to the government;
c. Represents the best analysis and judgment
available to the government;
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d. Provides for a disciplined expression of
agreement and dissent among participating members
of the Intelligence Community, thereby allowing for
the expression of departmental perspectives on
national intelligence issues.
National intelligence frequently overlaps extensively
with intelligence that serves departmental and tactical needs,
in terms of sources, content, and intended audience or use.
It frequently draws upon inputs from departmental elements of
the Community. It frequently contributes to meeting depart-
mental needs; NIEs, for example, are supposed to provide the
basis for DIA's Defense Intelligence Projections for Planning
(DIPP).
In any case, national intelligence has the two principal
missions of providing to top-level US decisionmakers authori-
tative intelligence information and judgment relating to
national security policy and to provide warning of impending
developments affecting US national security. A corrolary of
the second mission is to provide intelligence support during
crisis or conflict situations to the President and his
immediate advisors.
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NIEs are the most formal vehicles for develop-
ing and conveying national intelligence. In fact, national
estimative products flow via the varied means of major
national estimates, which may, as in
Soviet strategic forces, be of large
special NIEs on selected topics; and
the case of those on
scope and volume;
interagency papers aiming
for collective judgment but lower authority. Such products
may be requested by users or initiated by the DCI or a member
of the National Foreign Intelligence Board (NFIB). Their
preparation is typically organized and supervised by members
of the DCI's NIO staff, but the burden of analysis and drafting
lies mainly with Community production elements. Final products
are reviewed and approved by the NFIB, where significant
dissents
however,
latitude
are incorporated. The main judgments of an NIE,
are the DCI's and he has, in principle, considerable
in determining how an estimate is to be prepared,
what it says, and what disputes are germane to the
product.
National estimate production has
final
occasioned a number
of criticisms and problems in recent years. NIEs attempt to
pull information together from and to serve all quarters.
As a result critics frequently find them insufficiently
focused and clear in judgment; collective judgment is frequently
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charged to be waffled consensus. Moreover, major NIEs are
very labor-intensive efforts; much of the typically scarce
analytic talent available in the Community on a specific
topic is tied up in negotiating over draft language. Sometimes
this clarifies understanding, but frequently it is no more than
writing by committee. As a major estimate marches forward to
NFIB consideration, analytic experts become supplanted by
agency representatives -- whose talents and instructions may
vary a good deal -- in the task of determining what the
estimate says.
The process of preparing estimates today is substantially
more ecumenical than it used to be. NIOs make a deliberate
effort to involve agencies other than CIA in major drafting
responsibility. Nevertheless, proximity of crucial talent
obliges the NIOs to lean heavily on CIA analysts. This
produces two problems:
agencies, especially in
the estimative process;
CIA's analysts, notably
complaint from other intelligence
Defense, that CIA continues to dominate
and complaint by the line managers of
the DDI, that NIOs are in fact
directly tasking their people -- something they claim the
NIOs cannot do.
Under E. 0. 11905, the responsibility for producing
national current intelligence -- as distinct from estimates
is given, or recognized to lie with, CIA. The function of
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current intelligence is to communicate a running account of
events abroad, what is happening, who is involved, what is
likely to happen next. Its major vehicles are the President's
Daily Brief, a product of extremely limited circulation, and
the National Intelligence Daily, aimed at a larger audience
from the Assistant Secretary level on up. CIA, DIA, and the
National Security Agency (NSA) also produce a large variety
of current intelligence products that distribute the "news"
to much larger audiences. National current intelligence items
are coordinated among interested agencies as time and subject
permit.
Although cutbacks have been made in CIA's manpower for
current intelligence, it is still an expensive business at
CIA and elsewhere. Again, the effort to supply a good informa-
tion service to many varied consumers comes in for criticism.
Some find the lack of analytic depth dissatisfying, while
relevant estimates are too infrequent or long-term in focus
to provide a reliable fare of mid-range analytic commentary.
If national intelligence is defined as that which
contributes to national policymaking, then other, much less
formal kinds of products must be included, such as inputs to
Presidential Review Memoranda (PRMs), formerly National
Security Study Memoranda (NSSMs), and direct support to
on-going policy processes, such as the SALT and MBFR negotiations.
The process whereby these contributions are made varies a great
deal. On the whole, it involves much less effort to mobilize
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and to coordinate Community-wide judgment on the part of the
DCI. CIA, with or without involvement by NI0s, may make an
input directly. Departmental intelligence elements may
collaborate with CIA participants, or input directly via
departmental participants. In mammoth undertakings, such
as NSSM 246 and the current PRM-l0, an effort may be made
to construct a Community-wide effort.
The lack of a formal system for making national intelli-
gence inputs to major policy studies has been troubling. The
risk of shoddy or biased intelligence inputs to important
studies exists. Yet, in fairness, it should be stated that
the intelligence support to these efforts can hardly be
better organized or executed than the main study efforts
themselves, where a somewhat uneven record exists. The key
problem here for the DCI is that intelligence contributions
of substantial importance to national policy are being made
in a manner that precludes his effective oversight and quality
control. Whether or not he has or should have formal responsi-
bility for such inevitably informal interactions with the
policy process is an open question. Yet it is very much in
this arena of direct give and take between intelligence
specialists and policy staffers that crucial services are
rendered and, furthermore, consumers decide whether they
think well or poorly of that service.
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"Net Assessment" is another area of intelligence support
to policy where problems and much semantic confusion have
arisen. Particularly as Soviet military power has overtaken
that of the US in various areas, US policymakers have demanded
from many sources, including intelligence, ever more sophis-
ticated comparisons of US and Soviet power. Because such
assessments involve or imply judgments about US military or
other capabilities, some argue that intelligence should not
conduct them.
In one light, net assessment is but a set of tools or
methodologies used to answer legitimate intelligence questions:
What are the military capabilities of a foreign power, what
are his most appealing options, how might the military balance
look to him? Using tools of operations research and systems
analysis, these questions can be addressed in terms of duels
between single weapons, force elements, or total military
posture. When looking at Soviet forces or other potential
opponents of the US, it is reasonable to use realistic data
and assumptions about US force capabilities in doing these
analyses, even though some judgment about US policy and
forces is implied by the outcome of the analysis.
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Net assessment in support of intelligence analysis is
an entirely legitimate function of intelligence. Components
in the Community appropriate to do such analysis have dif-
ficulty, however, in acquiring enough people with necessary
skills and reliable information on US capabilities to conduct
such analyses on a meaningful scale.
Another problem arises with respect to net assessment
aimed specifically at informing policy choice or the selection
of force options. Here, most in the Intelligence Community
would agree that intelligence should be limited to a supporting
role, making necessary inputs to what is directly a form of
policy analysis. But even a supporting role requires that
there be something fairly specific and organized to support.
Despite the existence of an office for net assessments in
the Office of the Secretary of Defense, largely concerned
with stimulating discrete studies by others, there has been
no focal point for policy-supporting net' assessments in the
Executive Branch. Creation of such would allow intelligence
support to be more effective. It would still, however, leave
the delicate problems of determining how tightly Community
support to such efforts should be coordinated, if at all.
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The DCI is, of course, responsible for the unique
intelligence products of CIA. CIA's own intelligence products
cover a wide range of subjects, time-horizons, and intended
users. Some reports are specialized for the demands of a
single customer. Some report on analytic efforts unique to
CIA in the Community; e.g.,
Soviet defense expenditures. Self-standing reports or serials
issued by CIA are frequently intended as background information
for both policymakers and other intelligence analysts working
in the same area. In CIA, as in other producing entities,
there is a powerful incentive to produce written product for
career advancement. At the same time, there is a powerful
need for written product to maintain the analytic base and
memory of the Community.
The provision of warning and crisis- or conflict-management
support to senior US policymakers is a major responsibility of
national intelligence. CIA and the office of the DCI were
created in large part to avert "another Pearl Harbor." It is,
of course, the duty of all intelligence collectors and analysts
at every level in every intelligence element to be alert for
any indication of an impending foreign development that would
affect US security interests. Partly for this reason, it has
been difficult for the Community to organize a systematic
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mechanism that specializes in the warning problem. Such
mechanisms do exist at many levels. The key ones are alert
and indications lists pertinent to specific warning problems,
e.g., a Soviet attack in Europe; 24-hour watch and operations
centers in the main intelligence agencies, communications
among the several operations centers and with the White House;
and the Strategic Warning Staff located in DIA, jointly manned,
and headed by DIA's Deputy Director for Production, who is also
the DCI's assistant for warning (this staff is limited to
warning of Soviet, Chinese, or North Korean events and conducts
an ongoing program of analysis and commentary on these areas.)
Some contend that these mechanisms are insufficient and
inadequately tied together in a national warning system. The
DCI probably has sufficient power to build more integrity into
the Community for purposes of warning. The question is how to
do it.
Once a crisis erupts, all elements of the Community
apply appropriate resources to the provision of crisis-
management support to policymakers. Although significant
warning failures have occurred, the record of intelligence
support in crisis is generally praised.
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There still have been problems, however, in pulling the
Community together for this task. After several crisis
experiences, the previous Administration instructed the DCI
to create a system for integrating the many crisis situation
reports that flooded up to senior levels from the major
intelligence agencies. This prompted plans for Community task
forces to produce a National Intelligence Situation Report.
President Ford also expressed the desire that such an
integrated national "sitrep" incorporate such information on
US actions and operations as needed to make it an all-points
report of crisis developments. Plans to achieve such
integration have so far been encumbered by reluctance on the
part of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) and the Department
of State to see intelligence reporting subsume their
respective reporting obligations and include sensitive
operational or diplomatic material in intelligence publications.
Various means to compromise on these problems are under
consideration. But the Carter Administration has yet to
state what it wishes in the way of intelligence support to
crisis management. Clearly the DCI cannot act unilaterally
outside the sphere of intelligence.
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The DCI's role as producer of national intelligence is
central to his entire function. How well is that role performed?
The overall quality and worth of national intelligence has been
extensively scrutinized by critics within the Community, in
the Executive Branch, and in the Congress. E. 0. 11905
prescribed a formal semi-annual review of the timeliness and
quality of intelligence products by the NSC, to be supported
by studies of the Intelligence Community Staff (ICS). The
first such study, issued in December of 1976, surveyed numerous
intelligence consumers and producers, covered a broad subject
range, and assayed a number of basic problems afflicting
intelligence production in the Community. The outgoing Ford
Administration did not consider this report (although the NSC
met on intelligence in January 1977), and it remains to be
seriously examined by the NSC,
This study and others like it, while varying in their
catalogue of strengths and weaknesses, tend to come to the
following judgments:
4. The need of policymakers for intelligence
is constantly expanding, as to subject coverage,
and deepening, as to detail and sophistication
required, There is probably no such condition as
full satisfaction, But the practical result is
that Community analytic resources are spread very
thin.
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the consumer side from innundating intelligence
entities with requests for ad hoc support.
c. Apart from the volume and value of intelligence
data collected and processed for analysis, the key
variables governing the quality of intelligence product
are generally the following:
(1) the quality and number of analytical
personnel in a given area;
(2) the quality and extent of data bases,
data processing, and data retrieval systems
supporting analysis;
(3) the "management environment" for analysis
and production.
The first two items are self-evident. The third refers
to such matters as whether good research and analysis
are properly encouraged and rewarded, protected from
"firefighting" and other staff distractions, etc.
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There is a meaningful consensus in the Community that
the quality of intelligence analysis and product could be
substantially improved by achieving improvements in these
key areas. Some cite the potential of new analytic methods,
particularly from the social sciences, for improving intelli-
gence analysis. The key question here is what capabilities
the DCI has to achieve improvements in national intelligence
production. The answer lies in part in his relationship to
CIA, where his powers are great, and in his relationship to
the rest of the Community, where they are much more limited.
(See next two subsections.)
By the interest and expertise he demonstrates in the
substance of intelligence production, the DCI can exert a
great deal of leadership throughout the producing Community.
He has considerable power to focus the content and stream-
line the process of national estimate production, if he
chooses. Moreover, he can create quality control devices
of various kinds to improve the analytic value of products
before they are issued, and to assess their impact on the
consumer.
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There are important, if not easily measured, limits
on what the DCI can do to extract the maximum product value
from a currently existing body of analytic resources in the
Community. Good analysis depends on good analysts with the
time and motivation to assemble, digest, and synthesize data.
But, because intelligence is a service business, it must jump
when the door bell rings. No matter how enthusiastically
intelligence managers and customers endorse the concept of
carefully developed plans and priorities for intelligence
production, there seems to be no way to avoid the steady
stream of unanticipated events and requests for service that
preclude their effective implementation, except at the margin.
Departmental intelligence production entities are, of course,
at the beck and call of their superiors, usually before the
DCI. Even CIA is subject to voluminous ad hoc requests and
demands that thwart systematic employment of analytic
resources. They are resisted with difficulty at any level.
The DCI, moreover, has a built-in incentive to be responsive
and tends to be sufficiently distant from the actual process
of analysis and production to be relatively insensitive to
the strains placed on it.
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These limits notwithstanding, the Community affords a
mechanism for the production of national intelligence and
places the DCI in recognized charge of it. Moreover, the
overall structure of the mechanism does conform generally
with the principles suggested in Section II as appropriate
for assessing the "output" end of the intelligence process.
It provides for diversified and specialized support to
departmental needs. It provides a non-departmental source
of intelligence judgment. It allows for sharing of data
and judgments in common. And it provides for collaboration
in agreement or expression of divergent views.
There are certainly weaknesses in all of these areas.
In many cases the DCI has, as the senior national intelligence
production authority, the powers needed to remedy or alleviate
problems. Improvements are frequently more a matter of judg-
ment and management attention than authority; for example,
how to make the national estimate process more expeditious,
or how to encourage more effective producer-consumer relations.
One major ingredient of the present national intelli-
gence process that Community structure places largely beyond
the DCI's influence is the quality of departmental participation
in that process. Where he can enlarge, strengthen, or reorganize
the analytical elements of CIA, he has little power, in practice,
over the major departmental contributors to national intelligence
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analysis and production. Although he reviews their budgets
in the NFIP process, and can undertake to evaluate their
performance, he has scant authority to compel measures to
improve that performance.
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III. C. Head of CIA
The National Security Act of 1947 created the office
of the DCI and the CIA as essentially one entity. On one
hand, it was to be a centralizing element in a federated
Community, correlating and evaluating all intelligence
available to the government, and recommending coordinated
actions by the Community to the NSC. At the same time it
was to house a set of unique competences, i.e., "services
of common concern" and those required for "other functions
and duties." It was clearly Congressional intent that CIA
become the home of a US civilian clandestine service arm.
Congress created thereby a modest competence to pull things
together in US intelligence and a substantial potential for
unique capabilities. Little tension was perceived between
these roles, and none between the DCI's role and CIA's role
they were an identity.
Very quickly CIA began to build unique competence as
an agency, and a variety of functions have grown up on the
implications of the National Security Act, on historical
need, and in the gaps between other elements of the
federated Intelligence Community. These functions were
not all spelled out until Executive Order 11905.
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Today CIA contains:
- An independent (non-departmental) analytic capa-
bility of broad, but not universal, scope.
- A home for the Clandestine Service that performs
foreign espionage, covert action, foreign counterintelli-
gence, and, in the past, para-military operations.
- Varied R&D activities that support the Clandestine
Service, analytic elements, and major national SIGINT
and imagery collection programs.
- Varied technical collection operations.
- Varied services of common concern, including
national photo interpretation, broadcast and document
collection and processing, and selected data base
maintenance.
- Needed support services.
CIA also houses, but does not "own" the DCI's main current
element for national intelligence production on a Community
basis -- the National Intelligence Officer staff. It once
housed his Intelligence Community Staff (ICS) for Community
policy, programming, and evaluation activities; the ICS is
being pressed by Congress to assume an identity completely
divorced from CIA.
It should be recognized that CIA is not an omnicompetent,
independent national intelligence agency in the sense that it
cannot do alone what it is responsible for. Like other
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Community elements, it depends on the Community. Its analytic
and production efforts depend heavily on collection activities
performed in defense agencies, i.e., NSA,
25X1
Defense Attache System, as well as in non-intelligence
departments, e.g., the Foreign Service. Its analytic capa-
bilities do not cover all the substantive areas from which
inputs to comprehensive national intelligence must come.
For example, agencies in Defense take the lead on most military
order-of-battle development and many weapons technical analyses
on which national production draws.
In other respects, the Agency has not been truly "of the
Community." For many years it was insulated from outside
pressures and scrutiny and enjoyed widespread acceptance of
its basic missions. This gave CIA unique freedom and flexi-
bility to pursue its missions effectively. Moreover, it can
be said that CIA was not really one integrated organization
throughout its history, but rather an assembly of relatively
independent units and cultures for analysis, clandestine
operations, and S&T activities. The DCI ran each more or less
separately and emphasized one or the other depending on his
interests and background. In the last year, under bombardment
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from outside and with the DCI turning increasingly to Community
matters, the Deputy Director of Central Intelligence (DDCI)
has moved to integrate CIA management at the Directorate level.
But at lower levels, separate cultures persist.
The DCI enjoys line management control over CIA alone in
the Intelligence Community. His powers are unusually strong
for the head of a government agency, especially in areas of
organization, personnel, and funding. CIA personnel are not
governed by Civil Service regulations, and may be dismissed at the
Director's discretion (in practice this power is qualified
by recent court actions.) Over the years, the DCI has used
these powers to develop new intelligence capabilities in CIA.
At the same time, some would argue that past DCI's have not
fully used their unusual powers sufficiently to:
a. resolve lasting organizational anomalies and
to overcome the problems of directorate separation;
b. develop and implement policies that assure
the highest quality in Agency personnel;
c. provide adequate resources for national
intelligence analysis and production.
The controversies of the past several years have placed
obvious strain on the CIA. Investigations and new oversight
activities have taxed the energies of staff and management
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at all levels. The legitimacy and effectiveness of the
Clandestine Service have been eroded by attacks, leaks, and
investigations. This, in turn, has created some not easily
measured morale problems for the Agency as a whole. In a
basic sense, the nation has raised the question: Whether
and how to run a clandestine foreign intelligence service?
Maintaining such a capability is dependent on many considera-
tions of law, management, funding, etc. But it bears also
on considerations of Community structure in the sense that,
whatever structure is chosen, it must make provision for the
special requirements of clandestinity, unless such a capa-
bility is to be done' away with entirely.
The above concerns may be obvious from recent events.
Less widely appreciated have been the strains on CIA and its
relationship to its head, the DCI, produced by the augmenta-
tion of the DCI's Community role since 1973 and especially
since early 1976. Many in the Community see the DCI as
bound to favor CIA, his own organization, in any Community
deliberation on production, requirements, or resources in
which CIA has an interest. Within CIA, recent trends have
been seen in an entirely different light. The DCI represents
CIA's link to the President and the NSC; he is therefore a
crucial part of CIA's reason for being. To the extent he
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devotes less time to his role as head of CIA to pay greater
attention to Community matters, this link is seen to weaken
and CIA's central and national status diminished. CIA
becomes, in fact, what some others in the Community want it
to be, "just another agency." But without a department
secretary or military chain of command to serve, CIA is not
"just another agency" like the rest of the Community, but
an entity somewhat cut adrift.
With the creation in 1973 of the NIO staff, asserted to
be more Community and less Agency-oriented in its work, CIA's
DDI has felt removed somewhat from the national intelligence
production process that constitutes its reason for being.
This perception arises at management levels largely; analysts
still labor on national intelligence, but more in response
to NIOs and less to their own management structure.
In Community debates over resources, CIA elements perceive
that they have lost their only advocate because the DCI must
strive not to show favoritism toward CIA in order to maintain
his credibility in the collegial context of Community resource
management. The DDCI, in day-to-day charge of CIA affairs,
is put in the awkward position of having to advocate CIA
interests that may add difficulties to the DCI's Community
role.
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Amid this, the newly active layer of Community resource
management and review, added to that of greater scrutiny by
Congress, has encumbered the process of getting approval on
major resource initiatives. CIA managers see this as
threatening the unique flexibility and innovative capacity
of CIA, particularly in technical and operational areas.
There are, of course, at least two points of view on this.
Others argue that the "good old days" are gone forever, and
CIA must learn to do business as others do. But these
adjustments have penalties as well as benefits, and adverse
perceptions of them are real problems for CIA management.
In the long run CIA's effectiveness cannot withstand a
conflict between the DCI's role as head of CIA and as
Community leader. Part of the problem is the imbalance
between the DCI's broad responsibilities and his more limited
decisionmaking powers in the Community arena. This forces
him into a position where he must appear to neglect CIA to be
effective as a negotiator in the Community. Solutions to
this problem all go to the heart of Community structure.
The basic alternatives are:
a. To strengthen DCI authorities over other
key Community elements so that they match his
authorities over CIA.
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b. To subordinate CIA directly to an official
who is not the Intelligence Community leader but who
has powers rivaling or exceeding those of the Community
leader, as the Secretary of Defense has over Defense
intelligence entities.
c. Within roughly the present structure, reaffirm
the centrality of CIA as a base for the DCI's Community
authority as well as a home for unique national
capabilities.
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III. D. Leader of the Intelligence Community
The law establishing the CIA and the Office of the DCI
recognized and perpetuated the existence of institutional
diversity in US intelligence. Getting the best intelligence
product out of these organizations is the DCI's oldest
Community role. Aside from production of national intelli-
gence and coordination of especially sensitive matters
across agency lines, the most important and contentious
role of the DCI in the Intelligence Community arises from
the need to manage intelligence resources efficiently,
particularly collection resources.
DCI resource management functions in the Community, as
noted in Section II, have two dominant dimensions: First,
the allocation of currently existing collection and processing
resources to meet current and relatively near-term intelli-
gence needs. Second, the preservation and development of
collection and processing resources to meet intelligence
needs in the future. Both activities are governed by the
concept of requirements. In the current management arena,
requirements are statements of information need that consti-
tute or can be translated into actionable instructions to
the operators of collection and processing resources. In
the mobilization of resources for the future, requirements
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are statements of information need that can be translated into
guidance or specifications for the development of ndw intelli-
gence capabilities, human or technical,
1. Current Collection Management: The Requirements
and Priorities System
Today, the DCI is the senior and central requirements
officer of the national intelligence community. He is in
charge of the processes whereby the Community decides how
to match current information needs with currently available
collection assets. This role imparts to him considerable
authority, although it is sometimes obscured by the seeming
complexity of the processes involved and by their neces-
sarily "democratic" nature.
The DCI's authority over intelligence requirements is
based originally on the duty assigned to CIA by the
National Security Act of 1947 to "make recommendations
to the National Security Council for the coordination
of such intelligence activities of the departments and
agencies as relate to the national security." E. 0. 11905
instructs the DCI to "develop national intelligence require-
ments and priorities." [NSCIDs . . .]
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As much as on formal authority, the requirements systems
of the Community grew up on the objective need of the
Community for a set of market mechanisms to match collectors
with users of data.
The requirements system starts with general statements
of information need. The DCI's Key Intelligence Questions,
for example, are topical and addressed to both producers
and collectors. The major base-line statement of information
needs and priorities is in DCID 1/2 and its attachment, which
assembles comprehensively and ranks major classes of intelli-
gence problem sets. These kinds of guidance allow collection
managers to structure their basic effort. In addition, the
system responds at the margin to specific demands from user
elements that refine or depart from the base-line priorities.
Community collection management varies markedly among the
three basic collection disciplines, imagery, signals intelli-
gence, and human source collection. These variations are
largely a function of the character of the respective
disciplines, and partly a reflection of organizational
preferences. In each case, the center point of the process
is an interagency committee lodged in the Intelligence
Community Staff (ICS) whose chairman reports to the DCI.
What varies is the prescriptive power of these committee
mechanisms over the actual operations of collectors, from
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very strong in the case of imagery's Committee on Imagery
Requirements and Exploitation (COMIREX) to quite weak in the
case of the Human Resources Committee (HRC), with the
SIGINT Committee in between.
National imagery collection is conducted by a small
number of photographic satellites (and occasional aircraft).
By its nature a photo satellite demands mechanical precision
in its instructions. This dictates that the process
of turning statements of information need into actionable
instructions to a system be tightly compressed. The importance
of the resource involved dictates that this function be highly
placed in the Community and centralized. This results in the
"COMIREX model" of requirements management, a requirements
committee for bringing statements of need together and adju-
dicating conflicting priorities, and a specialized staff
competence for turning statements of need into precise col-
lection instructions. Overhead imaging systems are operated
on comprehensive standing instructions which are adjusted
to changing needs by the COMIREX mechanism.
1 Users interact with the requirements mechanism through
a central computer and remote terminals.
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Collected images are general information packages that
are easily disseminated and susceptible to decentralized
exploitation. Hence the mechanical rigor and centralization
of the imagery requirements process is more relaxed in the
exploitation phase. All overhead imagery is distributed to
some 25 major exploitation facilities among intelligence
agencies and military commands, with the central requirements
mechanism seeing that priority needs for reading out informa-
tion are met and that appropriate data bases are maintained.
By comparison with imagery, the SIGINT world is much more
diverse as to systems and suborganizations involved. SIGINT
collection systems are much greater in number and their out-
put requires much more specialized processing. Collection
management therefore requires decentralized decisionmaking
by stages. The central "market place," the SIGINT Committee
in this case, must issue actionable statements of information
need to the manager of US national SIGINT activity, the
Director of NSA. On occasion, say, with respect to use of a
critical SIGINT satellite in a crisis situation, this guidance
may be prescriptive in detail. But generally it must and
does leave the operator a good deal of discretion in mixing
the diversity of taskable assets at his disposal. And proce-
dures exist for users to address time-critical requirements to
NSA directly, with advisory to the central committee mechanism.
Under NSCID 6 (?), the Director, NSA, looks to the DCI's requirements
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mechanism for all SIGINT basic statements of requirements and
priorities, including military and tactical requirements.
During the last two years, the SIGINT Committee has been
building a single, comprehensive National SIGINT Requirements
System to embrace the whole of the SIGINT environment, COMINT,
ELINT, and Telemetry.
In the area of human resources collection it would be
misleading to claim that a national collection requirements
system exists. Each HUMINT collection entity within intelli-
gence can take guidance from general requirements statements,
such as Key Intelligence Questions and DCID 1/2. But it
basically operates on its own appreciation of national and
departmental requirements developed through direct contact
with analysts and customers. Several factors inherent in the
nature and organizational structure of HUMINT account for
this. Clandestine agents obviously cannot be tasked in the
same manner as a satellite or a ground receiver. Moreover,
the need for operational security inhibits the exchange of
knowledge about agent capabilities, or even existence, that
can take place in the requirements "market place" governing
technical collectors. Of even greater importance, human
intelligence collection is, in reality, spread among many
US government entities that are outside intelligence and
resist any formal identification with it, e.g., Foreign Service
Officers, Treasury, Commerce, Agriculture attaches, military
advisory groups. These extremely productive human intelligence
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collection resources do not accept requirements or tasking
from intelligence, although they will respond to guidance.
This distinction is more than semantic since it preserves the
complete discretion of the non-intelligence collector. But it
also precludes creation of a comprehensive human resources
requirements system in any way analogous to those in imagery
and SIGINT. As a result, the DCI's Human Resources Committee,
in existence for two years, has concentrated on orientation
and guidance to non-intelligence HUMINT collectors to heighten
voluntary responsiveness to intelligence needs, and on post-hoc
evaluation of overseas mission reporting.
The collection requirements and management systems of the
Intelligence Community are evolving and growing, largely under
the general pressure on intelligence to achieve and to demon-
strate efficiency. There is still lacking a formal and
unified system for "all-source" requirements development.
Such competence is not absent from the requirements process
now. It is scattered among the existing collection committees,
special agency staffs, the NFIB itself, senior managers of the
Community, and in user-analysts themselves. There are, in short,
people and organizations that can effectively influence who does
what best on an all-source basis. Yet the need is clearly growing
for some institutionalized system to do this systematically and
currently. Plans are presently being developed to meet this need,
hopefully in a manner that does not merely add another layer of
impedimenta to the system.
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Except for the problem of non-intelligence human source
collectors, most of the problems of Intelligence Community
requirements management for current collection can be addressed
within present structures and with present DCI authorities.
Under any Community structure, the system must provide for a
"democratic" interaction of needs and capabilities and
sufficient central authority to set the pace and to see the
system work.
In the area of current collection management, the most
vexing problem pertinent to Community structure concerns the
control of major national technical collection systems in
time of war when the military-tactical needs these systems
are increasingly capable of serving become much more important.
This issue generates strong feelings and pervades the debate
about DCI authorities over current collection operations and
programming future resources. It cannot be conclusively
resolved in the abstract. It is not at all clear, for
example, whether there would be major conflicts of priority
among military and civilian collection requirements in a war
where these assets could perform meaningfully; or whether who
presides over the process of adjudication would make a real
difference. What is clear is that provision must be made for
the effective operation of relevant collection assets in many
different kinds of conflict situations. This requires careful
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prior study, the creation of robust control mechanisms, and the
exercise of applicable procedures. The peace-war control issue
cannot be resolved at the last minute.
2. Requirements, Planning-, Programming, and Budgeting
Intelligence for the Future
Who is in charge of the process of building US national
intelligence capabilities for the future, and what authorities
should he or they have? This more than any other single issue
governs the debate over the structure of the Intelligence
Community. At present the DCI has a newly strengthened but
still fragile and difficult role.
Since World War 'II, a complex Community of organizations
has been created to produce national intelligence. These
organizations are lodged in numerous departments of govern-
ment, most of them in the Defense Department. Since the late
1960s, all Presidents and, increasingly, the Congress have
looked to the DCI as the nation's senior full-time intelli-
gence officer to lead and to manage this Community. Emphasis
on the importance of Community resource management for the
future has steadily grown. The President and Congress expect
the DCI to assure that resource allocations are optimally
balanced across intelligence activities for the best product
at the least cost.
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Some would maintain that the mounting demand upon the DCI
to fulfill this role has been unwise from the start and that
departmentally based intelligence resource management should
not be subject to centralized extra-departmental intelligence
authority. But fiscal pressures created the demand for more
and better intelligence resource management, while the DCI's
"centrality" in the system, his seniority as the nation's
substantive intelligence officer, and his undivided preoccupa-
tion with intelligence made him its natural focus. In the
presence of vague or overlapping definitions of "national,"
"departmental," and "tactical" intelligence, some in Congress
have sought to press on the DCI more responsibility for the
latter classes of activities.
Defining and empowering this DCI responsibility has been
studied intensely several times in recent years. To date,
each round of decisions has resulted in, giving the DCI
Community management mechanisms that have been essentially
collegial in nature because of the continuing line responsi-
bilities of departmental management. That is, DCI responsi-
bilities and powers overlapped or conflicted with those of
other officers, notably the Secretary of Defense, requiring
a negotiating forum to reach decisions. President Ford's
Executive Order 11905 created such a forum for resource
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management matters in the Committee on Foreign Intelligence (CFI)
now called the Policy Review Committee (Intelligence).
Several of the elements of the Community are primarily
national by charter and mission: CIA, NSA,
Only CIA is directly subordinate to the
located in the Department of
DCI. NSA
Defense, are especially significant in this context for the
volume and importance of the intelligence data they collect
for national, departmental, and, potentially, tactical purposes.
Routinely these organizations respond to operational tasking
by Community mechanisms in which Defense participates heavily
and over which the DCI presides. In debates over programming
and budgeting, they appear at times from the DCI's vantage
point to be castled behind their institutional subordination
to the Secretary of Defense. From the vantage point of senior
Defense intelligence managers, however, they seem immunized
from clear Defense control by their obligatory responsiveness
to the DCI. The program manager's vantage point reveals the
uncertainties, ambiguities -- and some flexibilities --
involved in having dual masters.
Other elements, such as DIA, other components of the
General Defense Intelligence Program, State/INR, and the
intelligence elements of Treasury, FBI, and ERDA exist
primarily to serve departmental needs, but also play a vital
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?111,
role in national intelligence collection and production. The
ambiguities of dual masters are displayed in their program
management to varying degrees as well.
The DCI's authoritative influence over collection priorities
and requirements is a potentially strong, if imprecise,
influence over the programs and budgets of NSA
and other Community elements he does not directly
control. Some believe that defining requirements and priorities
should be the only basis for his influence on programs.
In the development of future intelligence capabilities,
however, the long lead-times and great uncertainties as to
both potential need and potential capabilities make require-
ments and priorities a very loose means of controlling actual
behavior at best. There must be wide latitude for judgment
and experimentation. There must be substantial hedging
against unlikely but possible developments. Options, branch
points, and margins for error must be built into any strategy
for the development of future intelligence capabilities.
Balances must be struck among the several goals of a multi-
purpose system. The power to make these decisions is, in
fact, the power to develop the capability.
A very important part of the DCI's Community leadership
and resource management role is to stimulate technological
and other initiatives aimed at improving collection and
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production performance. Then he must assure such initiatives
are realistically evaluated against requirements and cost.
This dual obligation creates a challenge for any resource
management system. "Tight" management tends to assure that
only needed innovations are approved. But it may also, over
time, suppress innovation.
The question before the house is whether and how well,
via present collegial mechanisms, the DCI can accomplish
effective resource management in the Community, especially
as regards planning and programming for the future.
Prior to the issuance of E. 0. 11905, the ability of the
DCI to influence the allocation of Community resources was
limited to his authority over the CIA and his participation
as one of the two members of the Executive Committee (ExCom)
which controlled
programs. Even there, where the DCI had direct but shared
authority over reconnaissance programs and activities, some
argued that he and the Department of Defense representative
were limited to approval or disapproval of program manager
recommendations. There was no effective method for the DCI
to stimulate activity or to direct trades between programs.
The DCI's voice was also limited prior to E. O. 11905
by the comparative weakness of the mechanisms for making his
views known to the President and the Office of Management and
Budget (OMB). Departments and agencies submitted their budgets
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separately to the President through OMB. Issues which
developed during the budget formulation
were often debated and resolved without
The DCI's recommendations were provided
an independently drafted set of program
and submission period
direct DCI input.
to the President in
recommendations
delivered in mid to late December. By then, the value of
this document was limited to little more than interesting
reading.
The CFI was created in order to extend the ExCom style
of management to
Program (NFIP).
relegated to the
the entire National Foreign Intelligence
Lacking such a forum, the DCI would be
pre-E. 0. 11905 situation; limited to bringing
influence (but no authority) to bear on only selected resource
decisions. He would be unable to force the Community to view
the entire programs side-by-side and to shift resources among
them.
During the past year, the first fully consolidated NFIP
and budget
This was a
persistent
were developed under the provisions of E. O. 11905.
major accomplishment.
But, it was accompanied by
struggle over conflicting authorities and substantive
judgments between the DCI and the Department of Defense.
These
struggles made unnecessarily cumbersome the process of ration-
alizing the overall NFIP budget. Progress was made in achieving
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decisions on new initiatives and in obtaining Community posi-
tions on issues stimulated by Congress and OMB. Much less
was accomplished in examining fundamental cross-program issues
and resource balances such as implied by "zero-base budgeting."
It has been difficult for departments/agencies having elements
in the NFIP, especially the Department of Defense and the
State Department, to accept the PRC (CFI) decisions as final
and not subject to the ultimate decision authority of the
Secretary or Agency head. Yet they must if the collegial
decision technique embodied in the CFI is to yield a consolidated
NFIP and budget for which the DCI can fairly be held responsible.
Otherwise, the mechanism is essentially advisory and the DCI
should not be held accountable for its results.
The achievements of the past year were attended by growing
tension between the two management roles of the DCI: head of
the Central Intelligence Agency and leader of the Community.
Some have argued, as a consequence, he should be divested of
the former so as to be "neutral" in executing the latter role.
Others contend that this alone would only create a weaker DCI,
with no executive base, or simply place another, weaker
authority, between CIA and the President. To be a strong
Community leader, the DCI needs, not less authority over his
only present operating base, but more over other key Community
elements.
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One may reach the following divergent conclusions on the
present Community management mechanism:
Opinion 1.:
The present system did not work too badly for the first
year. A learning curve will show improvement, especially as
a full cycle of evaluation, planning, programming, and budget-
ing is implemented. Moreover, whatever the cost in bureaucratic
struggle, it is essential that the future programs and budgets
of the main national intelligence entities be thrashed out in
a forum where a diversity of needs and views are authoritatively
represented. A rational consolidated NFIP can be developed
by collegial mechanisms, but, in the final analysis, the
ultimate authority over the programs and budgets of depart-
mentally based intelligence programs rests -- and must rest
with the department head. The DCI should lead by defining
requirements and priorities.
Opinion 2:
The first opinion is correct in stressing the achievements
of the past year and the prospects for improvement as the
present system shakes down. It is also correct to stress the
value of collegial mechanisms in expressing the diversity of
demands on intelligence programs that exist in the real world,
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no matter what the authority structure, and that should be
reflected in those programs. But stress on the ultimate
authority of the department head over the Community mechanism
chaired by the DCI is bound to make the system fail -- or at
least very awkward. To function, the system requires direct
access to and influence over the entire programming and
budgeting process of all NFIP programs on the part of the
DCI's Community mechanism and acceptance of collegial CFI,
now PRC(I), decisions as final, but for infrequent cases
appealed explicitly to the National Security Council and the
President. In essence, the system can work if the members
want it to work.
Opinion 3:
The present system leaves the DCI with too little power
over entities other than CIA to achieve what is expected of
him, a fundamental rationalization of resource allocation
among the major national intelligence organizations and
activities. He does not have sufficient direct power, except
through the PRC(I), to investigate, call up well-supported
program alternatives on, experiment with changes to, and, in
the face of divergent views, conclusively resolve disputes
on the major national intelligence programs whose integration
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he is charged to accomplish. In addition, line command of CIA
along with collegial leadership of the Community imposes tension
on both jobs. The Community suspects the DCI and his Community
officers of favoring CIA. CIA fears loss to the Community
arena of its senior protagonist and only link to the President.
To be a true Community manager held accountable as such, the
DCI must have more line authority and direct budget control
over NFIP elements other than CIA. At the very least, the
DCI must gain line and budget control over the "commanding
heights" of the national community he is responsible for:
CIA, NSA, The dual-master
ambiguity of the latter three must be resolved in the DCI's
favor.
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III. E. Protector of Intelligence Sources and Methods
The National Security Act makes the DCI "responsible for
protecting intelligence sources and methods from unauthorized
disclosure" (50 USC 403(d)C3)). Executive Order 11905 supplements
this responsibility. Notwithstanding the Government-wide nature
of this responsibility, departments and agencies have generally
applied sources and methods protective measures on an individual
basis.
DCI Community leadership in protecting sources and methods
has heretofore generally been limited to compartmented intelli-
gence, and to dissemination and use restrictions for intelligence
information. Factors that have tended to serve as a brake on a
wider DCI role in this area are:
a. Intelligence information must in large part rely
for its protection on the total classification system,
established by an Executive Order for all national
security purposes;
b. Personnel security procedures for other than
compartmented access are governed by Executive Orders
and departmental regulations, which are again designed
to support general national security purposes.
c. There are no Government-wide agreed definitions
for intelligence sources and methods; and
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d. There are no effective laws to deter and punish
the unauthorized public disclosure of sources and methods
information.
The problem of unauthorized disclosures of classified
information affects sources and methods data as much as it does
defense or foreign policy information. Whether this development
has been prompted more by loss of credibility of classifications
in general, or by the lack of sanctions against disclosure, is
a conundrum. In any event the system is out of balance.. Those
whose concern is to protect sensitive information tend to over-
classify and rely more than they should on compartmentation to
compensate for weaknesses in the security system. The belief
that classifications and controls are arbitrary is thus enhanced,
further loosening inhibitions against disclosure. This leads
to even more overcontrol, resulting also in restriction of
dissemination of intelligence needed for analysis, management
and operations.
Past approaches to the problem have involved the DCI in
seeking new legislation to prevent future damaging disclosures
of sources and methods information. The Congress has been
unreceptive because of intelligence improprieties and more
general abuse of the "national security" label. Effective
statutory support for the DCI's responsibility in this area
must still be sought--but in concert with wider initiatives
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on official secrecy and initiatives which he can take in
protecting sources and methods information. Those initiatives
would include:
a. Reinvigorating the classification system within
the Intelligence Community. The DCI could:
(1) Direct classification by content and by
paragraph to make originators think as much about
sensitivity as about substance, and thereby see
that truly sensitive sources and methods information
is distinguished in classification from less sensitive
product;
(2) Play a leading role in revising E.O. 11652
to tighten definitions and individual responsibility,
and to provide for classification guidance sufficient
to show originators what information is particularly
sensitive so they can mark it properly for protection.
b. Strengthening supplemental controls (including
compartmentation) for particularly sensitive information.
The DCI could:
(1) Define criteria for such controls, and
establish definitions for the sensitive sources
and methods data to be protected thereby;
(2) Provide guidance for Community collectors
and producers to insure that sensitive source data
is separated in whole or in part from intelligence
product designed for consumers;
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(3) Enhance the effectiveness of compartments,
and limit their adverse effects on dissemination and
use, by subjecting them to the "sunset law" concept--
i.e., establish or renew them for Community use only
upon DCI approval based on demonstrated inability of
normal classifications to protect the information and
on Community risk-gain assessments by both collectors
and consumers;
(4) Push vigorously for full authority to
determine security policy for the TALENT KEYHOLE
system (10Td controlled by a 1960 Presidential directive
whose premises have been eroded over time).
c. Improving the personnel security system governing
access to intelligence information. The DCI could:
(1) Seek early determination of what background
information on persons is both needed and used for
determining intelligence access;
(2) Use the information so developed to push
for revision of Executive Orders 10450 and 10865,
governing Government employees and contractors
respectively, and of other departmental programs,
so as to insure that all who have actual or potential
access to sources and methods data meet minimum and
consistent standards.
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d. Seeking Congressional enactment of a statute
with "teeth" to protect sources and methods information
and to punish meaningfully those who disclose it. The
DCI could improve the chances for passage of such a law
by requiring it to be limited to a clearly and
defined class of sensitive sources and methods
by showing the Congress that the Community was
significant progress in taking all the actions
narrowly
data, and
making
it could
to reform and strengthen its classification and control
practices.
Compartmentation and dissemination practices will, of
course, have to be continually reviewed and probably revised
to afford wider access to many new users of intelligence. This
applies particularly to military users of satellite-derived
information.
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III. F. Participant in VS Foreign Counterintelligence (CI)*
Policies and Activities
The size and extent of the Soviet/East European/Cuban
human intelligence effort against the US continues its increasing
trend and constitutes a significant threat to national security.
This hostile intelligence effort includes not only a larger
Soviet official presence in the US, but. large numbers of technical,
cultural, and economic visitors to the US; a large number of
Soviet vessels with their crews; and extensive Soviet operations
to recruit Americans in and from third countries.
The US foreign CI effort against this threat is carried on
by five separate agencies -- the FBI, CIA, US Army Intelligence
Agency (USAINTA), Naval Investigative Service (NIS), and Air
Force Office of Special Investigations (AFOSI). There is no
national CI policy or structure. Coordination is inadequate.
The CIA coordinates CI operations abroad; the FBI, within the
US. There is no centralized operational coordination in the
Department of Defense. There is nothing overall. Furthermore,
in terms of resource purview, the CI components of the FBI and
CIA are now within the National Foreign Intelligence Program,
but the military CI agencies are not.
*The E.O. 11905 definition of foreign CI applies. The
emphasis is on the foreign relationship; the locus may be either
within the US or abroad. Substantively it does not include
protective security functions but does include foreign CI
collection, investigations for operational leads, operations,
related information processing, and production.
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This situation adversely affects our national ability
to deter the foreign hostile intelligence threat. The FBI
has the bulk of the resources devoted to the national foreign
CI effort. The FBI, however, is still experiencing practical
difficulties in building a career CI corps with resources
adequate for the threat. CIA, which is responsible for CI
operations abroad, from whence a significant part of the CI
threat comes, is still rebuilding its CI program to make up
for past problems.
Foreign CI sooner or later involves Americans. Legal
and public concerns with insuring protection of constitutional
and statutory rights sometimes slow individual agency foreign CI
efforts and impede their effectiveness.
The basic problem therefore is how to strengthen the
national foreign CI program while insuring that the constitu-
tional and statutory rights of Americans and others entitled
to these rights are protected.
The deficiencies and the problem are widely recognized.
The Church Committee has recommended the creation of a new NSC
CI Committee with the Attorney General (AG) as Chairman, and a
classified review of current CI issues to provide for enunciation
of a classified Presidential statement on national CI policy
and objectives. The President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory
Board (PFIAB) has recommended the development by the AG, in
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consultation with the DCI, of a national CI policy directive,
and the establishment at a senior level of a CI coordinating
mechanism responsible to the DCI and the AG.
In recognition of and in response to the above, the
Intelligence Community Staff (ICS) drafted and circulated for
Community comment a proposed unclassified Executive Order to
establish an AG-chaired NSC-level National CI Policy Committee
with a subordinate working body. The Department of Defense,
State, FBI, and CIA have all supported the proposal in principle.
An approach to Attorney General Bell by the DCI, the Deputy to
the DCI for the Intelligence Community, and the FBI Director is
planned as a next step to secure Attorney General Bell's agreement
in principle to head such a group. A Community working group
under ICS auspices would then revise the original proposal to
reflect Community comments on it and new insights.
There is no real alternative to the establishment of a
national foreign CI policymaking and coordinating structure.
Without it the problem will only get worse.
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III. G. Guarantor of Propriety
The National Security Act of 1947 and the Central
Intelligence Agency Act of 1949 are silent on the issue of
the DCI responsibility for insuring the propriety of intelli-
gence activities within the Intelligence Community. As the
head of CIA, the DCI is provided with an Inspector General
(IG) and the normal mechanisms for discovery and investigation
of impropriety within CIA. In addition, as a senior public
official, the DCI is sworn to uphold the Constitution and to
execute all of his duties in a responsible manner.
Executive Order 11905 does make the DCI responsible for
"establishing procedures to insure the propriety of requests
and responses from the White House staff or other executive
departments and agencies of the Intelligence Community."
However, the Executive Order does not provide any authorities
or mechanisms for exercising these responsibilities on a
Community basis.
The Executive Order also directs the DCI to "insure
the existence of strong inspector general capabilities in
all elements of the Intelligence Community." The Order
further directs the DCI to insure that each inspector general
submits a quarterly report to the Intelligence Oversight Board
which sets forth any questionable activities.
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Although the DCI does not have formal authorities or
mechanisms for insuring the propriety of activities of the
Intelligence Community, he is seen by the public, Congress,
and probably by the President as the responsible government
official. In fact, there is a large gap between his perceived
and his actual authority.
Precisely defining what type of intelligence activities
are proper and improper is no mean task. Executive Order 11905
lists a series of collection activities that are prohibited.
However, the Intelligence Community, and the DCI as its
leader, often are taken to task for activities that are not
on that list or included in by any other formal definition
of improper activities. But given the nature of intelligence,
there is a strong possibility that such nonexcluded activities
may cause a public or Congressional reaction because they are
seen as insensitive to the current climate of opinion about
intelligence, because they are poorly conceived, or because
they are only partially understood by their critics.
Although not "on the list" of restricted activities, the
public, Congress, and even the Executive may judge them as
improper and hold the DCI responsible.
Executive Order 11905 established the Intelligence
Oversight Board (I0B) and directed the various inspectors
general of the intelligence agencies to report to the Board
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questionable activities involving legality or propriety. The
IGs were required to Provide quarterly reports to the I0B,
provide any information requested by the Board and to develop
procedures for discovering and reporting on questionable
activities. Reports to the IOB by intelligence elements
other than CIA are not made available to the DCI.
The DCI has no Community inspector general nor is he the
channel through which inspectors general report improprieties.
In fact, inspectors general of the various intelligence
organizations have indicated they would not provide these
reports to the DCI and that such a reporting procedure might
itself be illegal.
Although the inspectors general of the various agencies
do not report to or through the DCI, he does have a variety
of means for monitoring intelligence activities. Clandestine
operations conducted by the DOD must be coordinated with the
DCI and sensitive intelligence operations (technical and
human) receive scrutiny by the DCI at both the departmental
level and at the Special Coordinating Committee (SCC) level.
However, the DCI is in no position to dig down into the
activities of an agency, other than CIA, and discover
improprieties in its activities.
Under the current structure of the Intelligence Community,
there is serious question as to whether the DCI should be
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provided with direct authority over the inspectors general
of the independent agencies. An increase in his authority
would result in a decrease in the role of individual
inspectors general. Although the DCI might provide some
greater uniformity in the criteria for determining propriety
and in the standards and procedures for reporting questionable
activities, this increased authority would impinge directly
on the responsibilities of the heads of departments and
independent agencies.
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III. H. Coordinator of Liaison with Foreign Intelligence
Services
No comprehensive national policy has been issued to
govern the conduct of US official relationships with foreign
intelligence and security services. Several aspects of foreign
liaison are, however, addressed in NSCIDs 2, 5 and 6 and
related DCI Directives. Some ambiguity results from this
piecemeal approach, especially as pertains to the respective
responsibilities of the DCI, the DIRNSA, and Chiefs of US
Missions abroad. Relationships with foreign intelligence and
security organizations are maintained by several departments
and agencies within, and outside of, the Intelligence Community
to exchange intelligence, counterintelligence and related
information for mutual benefit. The totality of US-foreign
liaison relationships and information exchanges (intelligence
or otherwise) is not now under the cognizance, control or
management of any single individual or organization in the
government. A national policy issuance which assigned
specific responsibilities and oversight for foreign liaison
supportive of national intelligence needs would be both
desirable and timely.
The responsibilities of the DCI for coordination of US
foreign intelligence activities as described in NSCIDs 1 and 2
need to be more clearly defined in relation to State and
Defense responsibilities set out in NSCID 2.
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NSCID 1 provides that the DCI "shall coordinate the
foreign intelligence activities of the United States in
accordance with existing law and applicable directive," and
that "The DCI shall formulate, as appropriate, policies with
respect to arrangements with foreign governments on intelli-
gence matters." NSCID 2 (Coordination of Overt Collection
Activities) provides that "The DCI shall ensure that the
planning for utilization of collecting and reporting capa-
bilities...avoids unnecessary duplication and uncoordinated
overlap."
NSCID 2 provides that "The Department of State shall
have primary responsibility for, and shall perform as a service
of common concern, the collection abroad...of political,
sociological, economic, scientific, and technical information."
NSCID 2 gives the Department of Defense responsibility
for collection of military intelligence information.
NSCID 2 provides that "The Senior U.S. representative...
shall coordinate in his area the collection activities not
covered by other National Security Council Directives." The
above noted responsibilities given to State, Defense and the
Senidir Representative in NSCID 2 presumably are intended to
include collection through foreign liaison. The DCI's authority
to coordinate US foreign intelligence activities appears to
apply to collection via overt as well as covert foreign liaison
arrangements, but generally speaking is being exercised only
in the latter.
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The DCI exercises a predominant foreign liaison
coordinating role ?in clandestine intelligence and CI matters.
NSCID 5 provides that the DCI will coordinate liaison that
"concerns clandestine activities or that involves foreign
clandestine services...," and that CIA shall conduct liaison
with foreign clandestine services as a service of common
concern. The directive also permits "other departments and
agencies with commands or installations located outside the
U.S.." to conduct such liaison provided it is coordinated with
the DCI. There is no problem with this part of NSCID 5.
Since NSCID 5 is limited to clandestine matters, it does
not address the DCI's role per NSCIDs 1 and 2 in the extensive
non-clandestine foreign liaison intelligence exchange activities
carried out by Defense Department elements and other federal
agencies under various intelligence and security-related programs.
In addition to clandestine charters, many foreign intelligence
services have criminal investigation, overt collection, analysis
and production responsibilities in the context of which various
US Government intelligence elements need to conduct liaison.
These factors have caused occasional coordination problems at
the field level, primarily in areas where major US military
commands are located,
military intelligence representatives have disagreed
control over information
on the extent of
exchanges between the US military and host country intelligence
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components. Such conflicts appear to stem from an inadequate
understanding of the DCI's authority and responsibilities on
such matters rather than from a need for newpolicies or
directives. We would expect such problems to largely disappear
in the event of more centralized management and oversight of
US-foreign intelligence liaison relationships and information
exchanges.
Intelligence exchanges and activities with foreign
intelligence services in sensitive compartmented activities,
such as SIGINT and imagery, have required special arrangements.
The issue in these cases normally is the protection and control
of the product of sensitive technical operations. The DCI's
basic responsibilities and authorities are set out in the
statutory provisions on protection of sources and methods as
well as in Section 3(d)(x) of Executive Order 11905.
In the case of imagery, the DCI's authorities are
specifically set out in special Presidential memoranda.
These memoranda provide for DCI control over policy and
procedures for exchange of imagery products with certain
zations. Most of this product is military-related and complex
agreements have been worked out with the foreign countries
concerned, governing the use of this special product. This
product control function is carried out under the DCI's aegis
with active participation by the Department of Defense, State,
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and others. In sensitive cases of this nature, where a
single central control point is obviously required, the DCI's
statutory responsibility for protecting sources and methods
and E.O. 11905 properly includes such exchange arrangements
with foreign intelligence and security services.
Because of the sometimes confusing lines of authority
inherent in NSCID's 5 and 6 with respect to SIGINT activities,
problems occasionally arise in interpreting what respective
roles should be played in the SIGINT field by the DCI and the
Director of the National Security Agency (DIRNSA). /
No
solution to this problem suggests itself at this time but it
is one that should be addressed when the NSCIDs are revised
and updated.
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III. I. Spokesman to Congress
Executive Order 11905 names the DCI as the principal
spokesman to Congress for the Intelligence Community and
instructs him to facilitate the use of intelligence products
by Congress. In addition, the Foreign Assistance Act of 1974
requires that the President certify each of CIA's covert
action programs and to so notify the Congress. The responsi-
bility for such reporting has been delegated to the DCI.
Over the past few years, the DCI has presented to Congress
the NFIP after its approval by the President. Congressional
committees tend to look to the DCI as the principal spokes-
man on the NFIP although not as the only spokesman.
Problems. The DCI's role as spokesman is not without
pitfalls. Traditionally, if not by law, the primary role of
the DCI is to serve the President and the national security
structure of the Executive Branch. If the DCI is to become
a principal supplier of intelligence information and analysis
to the Congress, he may be placed in the awkward position of
attempting to serve two masters who, by Constitutional design,
are frequently on different sides of major foreign policy
issues. In these circumstances, the objectivity which is
the DCI's most precious attribute may be challenged by both
sides. At a minimum, the Director may lose the confidence
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of other elements of the Executive Branch, particularly DOD
and State, on which he depends for critically important
feedback on foreign policy planning and other sensitive
information which these elements glean in the course of
their work. Accordingly, one of the foremost problems in
the years ahead may be to find a way in which the Director
can respond to the proper demands of Congress without
jeopardizing his relations with the Executive.
The manner in which the Intelligence Community is
organized probably will not significantly change the DCI's
role as spokesman to Congress. Were his Community powers
enhanced, the DCI would be in a position to better insure
that intelligence elements speak with a single voice.
However, the DCI probably would not wish to place restrictions
on program managers nor would Congress acquiesce in the appli-
cation of such restrictions. Program managers are obviously
in the best position to provide the details on the objectives
and funding of their particular activities.
The DCI is responsible for the production of national
intelligence and as such he has a special role in providing
Congress with substantive judgments on key intelligence
issues. Organizational changes in the Intelligence Community
would not seriously change the DCI's responsibility in this
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area or increase his authorities as the spokesman to Congress.
Whatever his management responsibilities under any organiza-
tional realignment, the DCI would be under considerable
pressure to provide the full range of differing views that
existswithin the Intelligence Community to Congress even
though he would also be asked to provide "the best judgment
of the Community."
Organizational changes in the Community will not affect
the DCI's primary role as the spokesman to Congress on
intelligence operations, particularly covert action programs.
The DCI currently is viewed as the responsible authority in
this area and it is unlikely that even a more definite split
between the Director of CIA and the DCI would relieve the
DCI of ultimate responsibility in this area of intelligence
activity.
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ler
III. J. Public Spokesman
There is no formal statutory basis for the DCI as public
spokesman of the Intelligence Community. Executive Order
11905 and NSCIDs are silent on this subject. However, as
the senior intelligence officer and intelligence advisor to
the President, the DCI is viewed by those inside and outside
of government as the principal spokesman on intelligence
issues. The public probably tends to reach this conclusion
because most of the issues that surface are associated with
CIA and the DCI as head of CIA.
Of late, the DCI frequently is called upon as the public
spokesman to comment on the involvement of intelligence ele-
ments in a particular activity, to rebut charges of impro-
priety, or to comment on substantive issues. DCIs have been
forced to go public during periods of controversy and in
response to pressure from the press. To relieve public
concerns about the impropriety of secret intelligence
activities, it probably will be necessary for the Intelligence
Community to release increasingly larger amounts of its
substantive output on an unclassified basis. As Congressional
oversight has become more intense and formalized, it has been
necessary for the Community leaders to appear before a widening
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number of Congressional bodies. There probably will be greater
emphasis on open sessions to the extent that they do not
seriously affect the necessarily classified aspects of intelli-
gence activities.
Regardless of the organizational configuration of the
Intelligence Community, the DCI will be expected to continue
the trend toward greater openness and to accept a continuing
role as public spokesman for the Community. There is little
likelihood that the DCI can go back to the "no comment"
stance of several years ago. As the DCI gains greater
visibility in this role, there likely will be increased
criticism that he is stifling disagreement and intelligence
judgments that run contrary to the "agreed" position.
Coordinated intelligence will draw the fire of those who
claim that dissenting views are being suppressed.
It is unlikely and probably undesirable that the DCI's
voice be the only one heard in the public arena. The DOD
will continue to present its views on intelligence matters.
In this regard, a primary role of the DCI will be to ensure
that the protection of sources and methods is maintained.
It will probably be necessary to lay down some specific
guidelines for the release of information to the public on
intelligence matters. But such procedures do not rest on
an organizational change in the Community.
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MEMORANDUM FOR: The Record
Tab A - 1 April 1977 issues. See appropriate Tab in
PRM-11 Official File for copy.
Tab B - Attached
Tab C - NSC Semi-Annual Review (See PAID Official
Files for copy)
Michelle
4/18/77
USE PREVIOUS
101
EDITIONS
Date
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