STATEMENT ON 'DISTORTION' OF INTELLIGENCE TO SERVE POLICY PURPOSES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80B01495R000400030005-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 7
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 18, 2006
• Sequence Number: 5
• Publication Date: November 17, 1975
• Content Type: MF

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I;+CIIIC 75-3857
17 November 1975
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MEMORANDUM FORS Director of Central Intelligence
Statement on "Distortion" of Intelligence to
Serve Policy Purposes
1. When you reviewed the Action Plan Task Force paper
which responded to the allegation that intelligence is "distorted"
for policy purposes you returned a note on 10 November requesting
a draft statement on the subject which you could include in a wrap-u
opening statement.
Z. Attached is such a draft statement, prepared bL__]
the 1VIO representative on the task group.
r
/s! Sc. uc1 V. ~; i_son
Samuel V. Wilson
Lieutenant General, USA
Deputy to the DCI for the
Intelligence Community
Attachment:
As stated
Distribution:
Orig. Addressee (w/att)
1 - DDCI(w/o att)
DR (w/aft)
f _ f' /att) 25X1
1 (w/ att)
2 - ronos (w/o att)
1 - IC Registry
!DCI/ICS/C
(17 November
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17 November- 197
RESPONSE TO CHARGES ABOUT !'DISTORTION"
OF INTELLIGENCE FOR POLICY PURPOSES
Allegations that CIA intelligence has been distorted to sui~
particular policies or policymakers are. substantially untrue.
For one thing, there have been remarkably few attempts from
the policy side over the years to dictate intelligence judgments. Arid
the few times such has been tried, it has been resisted.
At worst, on a few occasions, some sharp debate between
intelligence officers and those on the policy side over contentious!
issues has led to solutions which satisfied no one entirely, but- w re as
good as could be arrived at given the then-current state of information.
Even those who believe the most serious charges levied against
the intelligence system (by Sam Adams, for example) have to
acknowledge that the process gave the dissident view a hearing, right
.up to the top.
The -single most important reason for this record is pe, p'
Most professional intelligence officers know (or soon learn) that
credibility is their most precious stock in trade, and most polio
I-
officials come-to appreciate this and to live. with it.. Those on eiiherr
side who do. not soon become discounted by their colleagues. ' If these
intrinsic disciplines are ever weakened in the profession, no am unt
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judgment on particular issues or broad points of view. T~7e
vast majority of these have been honest, legitimate
differences of opinion on the evidence. A small number
have been designed to support particular policies. These; have
been few and far between, they stand on the record for al~ to
see, and they fouled no n.n.e a.f iihe a rnn n_r _3xac _~ T1,e pr 4 c.-SE
.of institutional tinkering could guarantee objectivity, and if this if_'
regulating spirit remains strong, almost any reasonable institutional
system can produce objective intelligence. Thus, the overriding
need for intelligence is to have competent and dedicated professionals,
and CIA has these aplenty.
These people can be helped by procedural and burcau.cra.ti.
which encourages and even requires dissents thus serves
safeguards. A number of such institutional arrangements have boen
used over the years. For example:
a. The process of coordination of national intelligence
carried with it not merely the right but the obligation of l
dissent. Time and again, National Intelligence Estimates
and similar assessments have recorded c.-_fferences of
only as a hedge against. enforced conformity, but also for j es both
the; majority and minority to lay their views on the line,
identified as such, with supporting evidence and rationale.
This is a good inducement to responsibility- -not only in terms
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of the formal written product, but in terms of`an aina.l.ytical~
rp o c e s s which washes out. the shoddy, holding up to the
light of discussion and debate any special pleading or poli.dy
hard-sell.
b. Another form of self-policing or quality control is
frequent reviews of past performance. CIA and the
Community have engaged in many retrospective as se s srfle ts,
post mortems of various kinds in which the record is weighed.
in hindsight for, am.3ng other things, conscious or unconscious
policy biases. Indeed, the Intelligence: Community proba ly
does more of this than any other area of Government opeations?
c. An active dialogue with scholars from the academil
community and other sources of expertise is carried on y all
production officers in CIA, State/INR. and DIA. This program
assures that perceptions and insights of both specialists nd
generalists from outside are brought both to review past)
production and to suggest further approaches. In a revese
flow, all the intelligence agencies have active programs for
sending their own personnel occasionally. to academic centers
for further training. .
-When.allthis has been. said, the question of objectivity i
intelligence must be discussed with certain realistic consider
in mind.
CT.
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only to a few leaders in closed societies, and sorneti es are
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literally unknowable to anyone anywhere at the time of writing.
b. Secondly, it must help the policy officer make
intelligent choices. If it tells him only what he wants to hear,
it fails. But if it addresses only irrelevant or easy qul stion.s,
or the right questions at the wrong time, it loses in us fulness
whatever it might gain in a kind of accuracy.
c. Thirdly, the more important the question, espe ially
in areas where knowledge is incomplete, the more clo ely and
xi ica%iy wi: deli sign m irev ~onu at me figenc rep ?rti_s
estimates.---And while it maybe-argued that-here i
P_r2SSur2S to d1stm-? S?_' supprea '-e=mnst 7i any o a?ri. , it
is also true that precisely here is where competent pro essionals
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a. First, intelligence is not prepared in an ivory tower
and is not prepared primarily to provide the stuff of ost
mortems. It is prepared in the real world for the re 1 use
of real policymakers. It is also prepared constantlyf-daily,
weekly, monthly, and yearly--from a stream of incc plete,,
fragmentary,. and often conflicting evidence. It must ry to
provide answers--repertorial, analytical or estimative--to,
tough questions, the answers to
which are sometimes
kriown
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.will be most.
jealous of their credibility. If they are tis.ble
to stick to obecti
'
J
soon learn or be told as much.
tn.at_the
v_-cannot- compel .national leaders to ''read
r -4
'
and inwardly digest" every Pronouncement of i ,te i'g , ce3= ~'h
-
leaders are their otvn men, possessed Of Powers and seized of
in operational situations pr llexns
often having to factor into their decisions
d. Finally, unless there is effective comxr~uni.catio
between policy and intelligence, the one will be illy-i[nform
~ ed
and the other academic. Close communication betweei them
inevitably produces some tensions, some clashes of
perspective, some divergences
of aim, Policy makers
have
objectives and preferences, and it-is only human of ther.~ to
value what helps them toward their goals and to be
i rrit~:te d
at what hinders them.
Presidential memoirs and many
contemporary documents allude often to the inconvenient
voice of intelligence getting in the way of what leaders
w~nted
to do. Sometimes intelligence prevailed, sometimes it as
overridden by other considerations. Intelligence is, after all,
one important input to decision making, but it is not the d
cy one.
asiU zne_ nz j E.SaSe= %VI~it7C>
ry '.nave iearnned, -over T-t4c
T
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Ye standards in dialogue with the policy
side, they do not belong in the profession and will ro ab l
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matters which are well beyond the province of foreign intelligence
But intelligence does have a right to be heard, and this right has
been observed over 25 or more years. Policy makers cannot be
forced to heed intelligence but we and they know that they can ignore
it only at their peril. In the last analysis, we cannot hope for mo
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