NATIONAL SECURITY INDUSTRIAL ASSOCIATION SHERATION PARK HOTEL WASHINGTON, D.C. 2000, THURSDAY, 4 OCTOBER 1979

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80B01554R003200100009-1
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: April 18, 2005
• Sequence Number: 9
• Publication Date: September 24, 1979
• Content Type: SPEECH

DCI
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National Security Industrial Association
Sheraton Park Hotel
Washington, D.C.
2000, Thursday, 4 October 1979
Draft Remarks
As a military officer, I long admired the considerable effort of
this association to ensure good communications between the military and
American industry on national security issues. As an intelligence
officer, vitally concerned with those same issues, I appreciate your
kind invitation to be with you tonight, and the opportunity to contribute
to that dialogue.
I would like briefly to tell you about some of the changes which
are occurring in the Intelligence Community today; some of the initiatives
we have taken, particularly as they relate to the American business community;
and ask your assistance in helping us solve some problems which, if they
cannot be solved, will affect us both adversely.
There are a number of similarities between the United States
Intelligence Community and most American business corporations. We in
intelligence have two main operating divisions: one to acquire the
materials that are needed to produce our product; and the other to
actually do the production which is, of course, providing a service to
our nation's foreign policy decisionmakers. The collection division in
our business might be likened to the purchasing department in yours. It
acquires our sole raw material - information - information about what is
happening in other countries and how that may affect the United States.
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Once this raw material is acquired, we turn it over to the second
operating entity, the production division, which is responsible for
actually turning out a written analysis or estimate of a situation for
the President or other policymakers. The objective is to help them
make more informed decisions on behalf of all of us.
Let me say a few words about those two operating divisions --
collection and production -- and highlight some aspects of each which,
I believe, are most relevant to your interests.
One of the greatest strengths of the American Intelligence Community
is its ability to collect the information which is needed, when it is
needed. I could not say that with such confidence if it were not for
the incredibly sophisticated and effective technical collection capabilities
which your companies have developed for us over the years. In the use
of technology for intelligence collection, American ingenuity has put us
clearly ahead of the Soviet Union. There is just no question that American
intelligence technology is the best in the world and for that we are very
grateful to you and very dependent upon you.
Interestingly, the very success that you have provided us in
collecting data has generated a subsidiary problem. This is that the
quantity of information available through our advanced technical systems
today almost threatens to swamp us. We are constantly working to find ways;
to process and analyze these large quantities of raw data effectively.
We are working hard on this with the help of many of you as well, but
much remains to be done.
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Going back to my look at our operating division for collecting
intelligence, I want to point out that a year and one-half ago I
established a vice president for this operating division. Previously,
the responsibility for collecting intelligence was spread across
several agencies of the Department of Defense and the Central Intelligence
Agency. Each operated with its own priorities and special areas of
concern. Today we have a single individual who is responsible for
managing and tasking all of the collection assets of our-nation's
intelligence community. Today, then, I can turn to one individual for
advice and support in this critical area. I happen to believe that our
most pressing need in the area of collecting intelligence is to be able
to bring good teamwork to bear in tackling any particular problem and
that is the job of this vice president for collection. In short,
because of the immense capabilities of the technical systems themselves,
we have to worry less about what they can do and more about whether we
are applying them properly to the problems at hand. The most successful
intelligence collection operations are those in which we deliberately
orchestrate our variety of collection capabilities so that where one
system is weak we bring another to bear that has complementary strength.
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