'CIVIL APPLICATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE' OF COMIREX

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79B01709A001400040056-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 17, 2005
• Sequence Number: 56
• Publication Date: July 9, 1973
• Content Type: NOTES

Approved For Release 2005/04/18 : CIA-RDP79B01709A001400040056-3
I JUL 1973
NOTE FOR THE RECORD
SUBJECT: "Civil Applications Subcommittee" of COMIREX
1. Dave Elliott, NSC Staff, and I discussed a proposal which
he is staffing to pick up and re-define the functions formerly carried
out under the auspices of the ARGO Steering Committee. ARGO has
been generally dormant during the last six to eight months.
2. He indicated he had had discussions with Dave Williamson
and Homer Newell at NASA, Don Steininger, Willkie Donelson at OMB,
and I at NSCIC, among others, concerning various aspects
of the former ARGO activities. The consensus at this point is to handle
these functions through two entities:
a . Establish a "Civilian Applications Subcommittee"
which would be lodged under COMIREX with the responsibility
of accepting and channeling civil agency requests and require-
ments for satellite imagery. The Subcommittee would have
rather limited membership, perhaps initially Interior,
Agriculture, and NASA, with Chairman, COMIREX an ex
officio member. The civil requests would be passed to
COMIREX for consideration and consolidation with those
of the primary intelligence applications.
b. Assign responsibility to the Executive Committee
of the ICCERSP (Interagency Coordination Committee: Earth
Resources Survey Program) to maintain contact with the
primary civil users of earth remote sensing materials and
also be the entity charged with responsibilities to facilitate
educational and monitoring functions products in the remote
sensing area.
NSC review(s) completed.
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3. I indicated that I saw no technical difficulty in establishing or
working with a civil applications subcommittee. It would be important,
however, to have a well defined (and formally recorded) interface with
respect to areas of responsibility. It would be important to be clear that
the intelligence community (Chairman, COMIREX) has no responsibility
for defining civil agency requirements or applications, as such. We agreed
this could be handled straightforwardly.
4. Elliott said that his next step would be to prepare two memoranda
for Dr. Kissinger's signature in draft calling for the establishment of the two
entities above. One memorandum would be to the DCI asking him to form a
Civil Applications Subcommittee of COMIREX. The other would be to D/OMB
asking that the other functions be assigned to the Executive Committee of the
ICCERSP. Elliott said that he would send draft copies of the two proposed
memoranda out for review and comment before discussing with Dr. Kissinger.
He said he also would be touching base again with The next 25X1
step, here, will be to receive the drafts from Elliott for comment.
25X1
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