SSCI STATEMENT ON A TEAM-B TEAM EXERCISE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP81M00980R002900070005-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 22, 2007
• Sequence Number: 5
• Publication Date: February 15, 1978
• Content Type: MF

Approved For Release 2007/03/03: CIA-RDP81 M00980R002900070005-9
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15 February 1978
MEMORANDUM FOR: Mr. William G. Miller, Staff Director,
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
congressional Support Staff, NFAC
SUBJECT : SSCIStatement on A Team-B Team Exercise
T3 It
Dr. Bowie has asked me to convey the following points:
The basic statement is reasonably accurate in its
representation of the A-B Team episode. There are two aspects
of the statement which could be somewhat misleading,, however:
Owing in part to the long gestation of this statement,
it is not now as clear as it should be that this was an exer-
cise conducted in one year, 1976, in connection with only
one of the many NIEs that the Intelligence Community produces.
I recommend that the Committee staff clarify this matter at
two spots in the statement:
--page 1, paragraph 1. Add to end of paragraph
"and conducted during the preparation of the
1976 NIE on Soviet Forces for Intercontinental
Conflict."
--page 7, last paragraph, first sentence. Change
"The most recent NIE" to "The 1976 NIE on Soviet
Forces for Intercontinental Conflict."
Many of the Committee's recommendations call for
procedures which the Intelligence Community has long practiced
and/or which the DCI and D/NFAC are now adopting or strength-
ening. Thus, while not inaccurate in a strict sense, the
recommendations may erroneously imply that the procedures
are not what they are.
?! IJPlard `DF Document Li 4076
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On page 4 of Senator Wallop's separate views there is
the statement that "while consciously refusing to entertain
the Soviets' own conception of what they are about militarily,
the authors of the NIEs have ended up conceiving of the So-
viets' enterprise in terms of our own doctrine of MAD" (that
is mutual assured destruction). While it is true that our
comparisons of US and Soviet forces use indexes which tend
to stress MAD criteria, the discussion of Soviet strategic
conceptions in the 1976 NIE is absolutely clear that the
Soviet conception stresses warfighting and war survival and
does not regard mutual assured destruction as a satisfactory
long-term relationship; e.g., paragraph 4 and 5 of the sum-
mary volume on page 18 (see attached). I am sure you would
want to bring this matter to the attention of the drafter
so that the inaccuracy can be removed.
Attachment: a/s e,- 71j1 e
25X1
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