MEMORANDUM FOR: MR. COFFEY FROM (Sanitized)

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP72-00038R000100270001-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 6
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 10, 2006
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: May 10, 1971
• Content Type: MF

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MEMORANDUM :FOR: Mr. Coffey
10 May 1971
The Chief, Support Services Staff and the Chief, have furnished
informal comments about the Inspector General's Report on Information Manage-
ment in the Agency Which I have incorporated with some of my own for your
consideration in responding to Mr. Stewart's invitation to offer constructive
suggestions toward improving his paper. Our comments may be more com-
prehensive than you had in mind for the immediate purpose but we can scut
through them if that would be helpful. Our comments are keyed to paragraphs
and page numbers.
Paragraphs 22 and 23 on page 13, I wonder whether it would be useful
to suggest that a specific reference to OMB Circular A?.44 Transmittal Memoran-
dum No. 1 be included here. TM No. 1 levied a requirement on all departments
and agencies to produce reports inventories, establish reports management -
programs, and set goals for reducing reporting requirements. The Agency
opted to deal with administrative reporting only and defer intelligence repoitin,1
until a later time. This end has been left dangling. There has not yet k,seen any
action to follow up with a review and analysis of reporting other than adminis-
trative nor has there been any real action to establish a continuing Agency
Reports Management program.
Paragraph 13 on page 20 compares reading requirements served by the
Cable Secretariat and CRS and the numbers of people in each of these components.
The point is made in this chapter that the Cable Secretariat is a 24-hour day
7-day week operation but we don't know whether CRS has a similar schedule or
works an 8-hour day 5-day week. Inferentially the comparison might be dis-
paraging to the Cable Secretariat. It might be helpful if this point were clarbaed.
It might also be useful to compare the number of analysts in the Cable Secretariat
with the number of analysts in CRS rather than comparing the WO strength of the
Cable Secretariat with the number of analysts in CBS.
Paragraph 24 on page 25 supports the continuation of independent processing
centers in OSP, RID, and FDIS without the benefit of a study on the possible
benefits of centralization. It is my impression that presentations recently made
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LL
by have suggested that compartmentation is no longer as critical ?
a flexor to separatism as it has been in the past. In light of this, it might be
useful for the LC. to re-examine his conclusion and either rephrase it or re- .
consider stating it at all.
? Paragraph 18 on page 36 says that the principal preoccupation of the
Agency Records Administration Officer appears to be figuring out how to dramatize,
the need for additional storage space. I think the need for storage space has been
successfully dramatized over the past few years as may be demonstrated by the
authorization to S p'end several hundred thousand dollars to install movable shelving
at the Records Center. Our present preoccupation is how to dramatize the need
for constant continuing attention to all facets of records management from creation
to destruction as a means of avoiding cyclical attention when there is a storage
crisis. I don't mean to suggest that we feel we have solved the storage problem.
We may never be able to completely solve that one. Our more immediate problem
and preoccupation is to find some way to introduce controls over the creation of
records and to reduce the rate of growth so that the recurrence of the storage
crisis will be less frequent.
Paragraph 19 on page 36 would be more precise if t indicated that there
is a staff of 6 professional and 3 clerical people in the Headquarters area and 17
people at the Records Center,
Paragraph 20 on page 37 may be somewhat misleading. While we have not
been authorized funds for new construction, we are in proCess of spending about
$500,000 for renovation of a Butler warehouse building and installation of electrically
driven movable shelving in the, main Records Center building. Installation of the
shelving will allow for increased storage of 29,300 cubic feet and renovations to
the Butler building will allow increased storage of 16,500 cubic feet. This total
of 45,800 cubic feet of new capacity was offset by the return of 25,500 cubic
feet from temporary storage we had arranged with the Federal Records Center
at Suitland, Maryland. Hence, our actual net gain in capacity, will be 20,300
cubic feet. At the present rate of growth, this will give us space for about
:gars.
Paragraph 21 on page 37 says that records management begins with the
filing system. I believe that professional records officers would prefer to say
that records management must begin with creation. Total records programs
include correspondence management, forms management, and reports manage-
ment. Filing systems arc developed to handle temporary working storage of
documents that have already been created. I am convinced that we must find
effective ways of managing the creation of paper and if we are successful in
doing that, filing systems can be immeasurably simplified..
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It might be helpful if paragraphs 22 and 23 on page 38 could be broadened
to explain how the Agency Records Program can be strengthened and the functions
of the Records Administration Officer broadened in a manner which is consistent
with the administration of records programs on a decentralized basis. We have
been struggling with this problem of centralization versus decentralization for
some time and I have some conceptual difficulty reconciling the notion of an Agency
Records Program composed of several separate and independent programs.
Strengthening the role of the Records Administration Officer and broadening his
function generally has been unacceptable to other Directorates. In any case, if
his role is to continue to be guidance and assistance, then it seems to me we need
to furnish instructions about when that guidance must be sought, when it may be
offered without solicitation, what happens if it is not accepted, and how do we
follow up to be sure that his guidance is acted upon. On the other hand, if we
are fully committed to decentralize Records Management programs, then perhaps
we should acknowledge that and abolish the central function of the Records
Administration Branch.
I am concerned that the LG. feels the archival function can be performed
as an additional duty as stated in paragraph 34 on page 43. Our experience with
records management functions being performed as .a part-time additional duty
has not been very satisfactory as the 1.G. has recognized and pointed out in his
report. I would be extremely reluctant to launch a now program of such magnitude
on that kind of tenuous foundation. We already have about 16,000 cubic feet of
material at the Records Center tentatively identified for archival retention.
Experience has shown that it requires 3 to 5 man-hours to screen each cubic
foot and select material truly worth keeping. This ,suggests that we have a
backlog of 16 to 20 man-years of screening in addition to establishing and main-
taining an on-going program which will prevent the development of such backlogs
in the future. I believe we should consider this a full-time Job for a permanent
organizational unit.
In paragraphs 16 and 17 on page 49 some organizational changes are suggested
which seem certain to stimulate discussion.ue I, G. '13 reasons for leaving RID
out of the proposed central authority are not clear nor are the reasons for 'including
all of the Office of Communications but only part of the Central Reference Service.
The I. G. says that technical considerations argue strongly for consolidation of
these elements and we have heard the same thing repeatedly from other sources.
I worry that we may allow technical considerations to displace the logic of the
systems the technology is intended to serve, None of the presentations we have
heard in recent months has attempted to deal with the logic for the present
organization to show how it is negated by the current and coming technology.
Suggestions for organizational changes are not offset or balanced by similar
suggestions for maintaining the continued operation of the units which would be
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. 102,:1;chind. The question of whether the technology really causes fundamental
changes in the systems or simply offers a different technique or the systems
to use in fulfilling their roles, is not addressed anywhere, In paragraph 17 he
L G. acknowledges that his survey has not been conducted in sufficient depth to
warrant a firm recommendation on the extent and nature of reorganization
needed at this time. This seems to suggest that further study may be indicated.
Perhaps it would be worthwhile for the I. G. to include such a recommendation
or, alternatively, to suggest that if his recommendation for reorganization is
accepted that a planning group be constituted to develop a detailed plan for its
orderly implementation at a specified date, say 1 january 1972.
On the whole, this is a thought-provoking .and useful report. It focuses
attention on areas that need it desperately. I hope these comments will be
useful and constructive.
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