LETTER TO LEO CHERNE FROM WILLIAM J. CASEY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP84M00395R000600040007-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: T
• Document Page Count: 11
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: April 30, 2007
• Sequence Number: 7
• Publication Date: June 29, 1982
• Content Type: LETTER

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The Director of Central Intelligence
Washington. D. C.20S05
Mr. Leo Cherne
Vice Chairman
President's Foreign Intelligence
Advisory Board
Washington, D.C. 20500
This is the second installment on the status of activities that have
been undertaken in response to the PFIAB's recommendations of 1976. I expect
it will be necessary for me to wrap up a few details in one final letter,
but this should provide the bulk of the .rest of our response.
In my letter last week, I deferred discussion of two of the nine formal
recommendations that appear on pages v-vii of the 2 December 1976 report
entitled, "Intelligence for the Future." Let me dispense with those first.
a. Second Recommendation: The NSC should direct a "most thorough
review o t e su sect and structure of intelligence support to
crisis management.
No single review of the subject of intelligence support to crisis
management has been conducted under the auspices of the NSC. There have been
half-hearted attempts to address the issue, but even the U.S. hostage situation
in Iran did not precipitate a searching, coordinated review.
Notwithstanding this, two improvements have been made in crisis support
as a result of recent actions. The Crisis ire-Planning Group (CPPG), chaired
by the NSC, was established'by the Assistant to the President for National
Security Affairs to support the Special Situation Group, which was created by
the National Security Decision Directive No. 3 on crisis management, dated
14 December 1981. The CPPG will identify areas where U.S. interests are at
stake in which rising tensions suggest the possible emergence of a crisis and
will ensure that appropriate interagency groups are formed to develop contingency
plans. The group meets weekly. The second relatively recent action has been
the revival by the DCI of the Watch Committee. This interagency group was
reestablished to review and report on potential developments, generally of
an imminent nature, which could surprise the President or have impact on U.S.
security or foreign policy. This Committee, composed of the chiefs of DDI,
DIA, NSA and INR, meets each Thursday to issue a report that is included
with the President's Daily Brief each Friday.
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b. Fifth Recommendation: The DCI should take a new look at the
problem of targeting Soviet research and development "with the
view of recommending amore intensive and more imaginative
effort in the future."
The Community has had and continues to improve various means
of alerting policymakers to important developments of high interest.
The Alert Memorandum is an interagency publication issued by the DCI on
behalf of the Intelligence Community. It is designed to warn explicitly
of impending developments that may have serious implications for U.S.
interests. It does not predict that an event will occur; only that
there is a reasonable possibility of it occurring. The more critical
the potential impact on the U.S., the lower the required threshold of
possibility. NIO Monthly Warning Reports are produced as a result of
monthly meetings of Community regional specialists who review short- to
mid-term events with warning implications under the chairmanship of the
various National Intelligence Officers. The objective is to identify a
reasonable range of potential situations that require the alerting of
the policy community. These reports are disseminated in Washington and,
on a selective basis, to embassies and commands abroad.
The White House Situation Room is linked to a network of
operations and watch centers involved in intelligence activities through
a system known as Intelligence Community Alerting Network (ICAN). Each
center has a variety of communications at its disposal, manned at all
times by experienced intelligence watch personnel.
A secure voice conferencing
networ known as National Operations and Intelligence Watch Officers Net
(NOIWON), connects the White House Situation Room with operations centers
at CIA, NSA, National Military Command Center, DIA, State Department and
State/INR. Other watch operations centers at Army, Navy, Air Force,
Marine Corps and the National Ocean Surveillance Intelligence Center can
receive messages.
Intelligence support during that extreme challen a to crisis
management, general nuclear war, is being addressed
There has not been a comprehensive or new look at Soviet R&D,
but the Community has and continues to be very interested in pieces of
the problem. Evidence that it is considered a topic of significant 25X1
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importance is the inclusion of the following language in the list of
National Intelligence Topics of Current Interest, for whatever that may
be worth: "Assess the Soviet capability to achieve a strategic breakout
or technological breakthrough in strategic nuclear capabilities."
In the collection area the Priorit Collection Pro ram Panel
was estahlichari in 197E
In the analysis area, there have been a number of developments.
The Foreign Applied Sciences Assessment Center was established in 1980
as an external academic center of excellence to assess the quality,
significance and direction of key foreign scientific research, particularly
as it might affect Soviet military, economic and political development.
Methodologies have been developed to identify Soviet R&D programs early
in their development phase: WSSIC has identified intelligence gaps to
better focus?collection analysis and production. WSSIC and STIC have
established Electronic Warfare l,lorking Groups: STIC emphasis will be on
technologies and the WSSIC emphasis on analysis. STIC has also established
the Technology Forecasting Idorking Group. The Technology Transfer
Assessment Center (TTAC) was created in 1981 to foster multidisciplinary
analysis and production. The Center will provide collection guidance
and operational support on all related technology transfer issues. The
TTAC identification of Soviet technological need is used to calibrate
their technological progress and, in this sense, TTAC forms an important
part of the overall effort for preventing a technological surprise. In
March 1982, the TTAC briefed the PFIAB on the technology transfer problem
and the Chief of the Center has been asked to serve as a consultant to a
PFIAB task force that will formulate action recommendations to the
President. Also in 1981, the DCI formed the Technology Transfer Intelligence
Committee to serve as the focal point within the Intelligence Community
on all technology transfer issues. The Director's Nuclear Intelligence
Panel reviews collection and analysis programs by the Joint Atomic
.Energy Intelligence Committee (JAEIC) as a group, by working groups of
JAEIC and by individual agencies,
Technological surprise is always a problem. lJe recognize this
and have at least been working to address it. The subject was treated
in NIE 11-3/8-82, "Soviet Capabilities for Strategic Nuclear Conflict,
1981-1991."' Two other efforts in the production area support the Community's
efforts to target Soviet R&D. An NIE on Prospects for Soviet military
Technology and R&D was published in 1980 and will be updated in 1982.
In addition, the STIC review and publications on enigmas relevant to .
Soviet technologies serve as building blocks in the analysis to detect
technological surprise.
Four other issues were raised in the PFIAB study of 2 December 1976
that are apparently of interest to you in your preparation of a response
to the President. Work continues on two of those items, and I will deal
with them in my next letter to you. The tHro I am prepared to address
today were included in a section entitled, "What Conceptual and Technological
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Innovations Should Be Pursued Most Vigorously; t~Jhich Among Them Will
Most Significantly Affect the Intelligence Requirements -and the Ability
of the System to Adequately Respond?"
a. It was suggested that an Intelligence Estimates Evaluation
Committee be made a permanent body of the PFIAB, with a
rotating membership.
At the time this recommendation was made, no independent body
existed inside or outside the Intelligence Community to review the
quality of estimates. In February 1979, then DCI Turner established the
Senior Review Panel (SRP, a standing group of several distinguished
senior-level government and academic leaders, to provide such a review
function. The SRP, which reports to me, continues to fulfill that role
today. It examines and critiques all interagency estimative drafts,
including terms of reference and concept papers, before they are put
into their final form. The SRP also undertakes lengthy investigations
of the Community's performance on specific, selected subjects as indicated
in the production of finished intelligence. I think that the SRP and
its activities go a long way toward meeting the need for an evaluative
body as expressed in the PFIAB's recommendations.
b. PFIAB addressed the need to examine thoroughly the legal,
social and political implications of the hazards posed by
increasingly sophisticated communications systems and computer
security. It questioned the extent of the government's
responsibilities to the public in informing, protecting and
making possible the means for thwarting any intrusions.
There has been no thorough examination by the Intelligence
Community of the legal, social and political implications of the hazards
represented by individual and foreign government attacks into our computer
data transmission, use and storage facilities. However, DoD and the
Intelligence Community have made some progress in addressing the security
problem. DoD has established the DoD Computer Security Center at NSA to
respond to problems and to improve the integrity of commercial computer
systems. lrlithin the Intelligence Community, a Computer Security Subcommittee
of the DCI's Security Committee has been established with its primary
mission to identify the parameters of the threat and disseminate relevant
information in an organized way to owners and managers of the systems.
Minimum security requirements have been published for use by the Community
and contractors, and periodically reexamined, which protect classified
foreign intelligence and counterintelligence processed or stored in ADP
systems and networks.
The Intelligence Information Handling Committee has sponsored
the development of a new, automated approach to controlling access to
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In the letter you sent to the president on 3 December 1976 in your
capacity as Chairman of the PFIAB, you identified five issues that in
your view required continuing. attention. One of the subjects--the need
for a national counterinte lligence policy--I addressed in my letter to
you last week. At this time, I would like to comment on how far we have
come in the last six years on three of the remaining four issues. The
last, I will address next week.
Issue 1: Soviet Intercept of U.S. Telecommunications Links.
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Issue 2: The Competitive Analysis Experiment.
Like the PFIAB, producers of intelligence want to ensure that
assumptions underlying intelligence issues are examined thoroughly and
that production procedures give sufficient recognition to sharply divergent
points of view. The NI0 system is designed to do that. Fostering
independent assessments is something that I have tried to do and will
continue to do. These independent assessments are an essential part of
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the intelligence production process because they provide the basis for
presentation of uncertainties, differing interpretations and alternative
findings in national intelligence.
The production of intell-igence by the Community is inherently,
though imperfectly, a competitive process. Intelligence on foreign
developments produced to support departmental missions covers most of
the same topics as intelligence produced to support the DCI. Interpreta-
tions of evidence and findings in departmental intelligence sometimes
differ from the interpretations and findings of CIA. These independent
or competitive assessments are used in the national intelligence production
process in attempting to arrive at the most likely judgment about foreign
developments. We have found that independently produced competing analyses,
whether they reach common or different findings, are most useful in
assessing new weapons systems that could have important implications for
U.S. security, such as ABM systems, ASI~J sensors or ballistic missiles
and in assessing the implications of complex and conflicting indications
of important foreign weapon programs, policies or intentions. On other
subjects, competing analyses, whether they reach the same or different
conclusions, are not always helpful. Least useful are competing findings
when none of the alternatives are well supported by evidence. But, even
if they do not solve the problem at issue, competing analyses can serve
another function: the differences can stimulate development of a compre-
hensive collection research and production program to fill gaps in our
understanding of a particular problem. This occurred with respect to
Soviet civil defense in 1974 and 1975. Although the competing analyses
were not useful in and of themselves because none of the judgments were
well supported by evidence, the differing findings did serve to identify
the gaps in information, which, once they were filled, left little
disagreement over the civil defense capabilities of the Soviet Union.
We have taken a number of actions which are designed to ensure
that competing viewpoints are articulated in the finished intelligence
which reaches the policymakers. I have placed special emphasis on
alternative views and have made it a point to encourage competing estimates
where appropriate. I have insisted that NIEs contain explicit statements
of uncertainty and that estimates convey the implications of their
findings on U.S. policy. We have made greater use of in-house panels of
experts and expert consultants from outside the Intelligence Community
to review and comment on drafts of important national intelligence
products. To ensure a Community effort, we have also called more frequently
on personnel from agencies other than CIA to draft national intelligence
products. I do not consider myopia a CIA problem, but having individuals
from all over the Community doing principal drafting has helped to
ensure that alternative views are expressed. I have made it a point to
see that all dissenting views are included in the text of estimates and
other major products. It is my explicit policy not to stifle alternative
views.
Issue 3: Economic Intelligence.
This issue will be addressed in my next letter.
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Issue 4: Legal and Constitutional Issues.
The legal issues, real or perceived, that affected the conduct
of intelligence activities in 1976, have been the subject of much attention
since that time. By and large, those issues have been resolved to the
Intelligence Community's satisfaction. There have been two revisions of
Executive Order 11905 and its implementing procedures and guidelines;
Congress enacted the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 to
authorize electronic surveillance in the U.S. for intelligence purposes;
and the Congressional support for other legislation sought by the Intelli-
gence Community has contributed greatly to the effective conduct of
intelligence activities.
Current laws, policies and practices carefully balance the
need to collect intelligence to secure the safety of the nation and the
concurrent need to protect civil liberties of Americans and all persons
in the U.S. Executive Order 12333, signed by President Reagan on 4 December
1981, provides clear, positive authority for agencies within the Intelligence
Community to collect foreign intelligence and counterintelligence information
even when it concerns U.S. persons. Special procedures have been designed
which protect citizens but allow appropriate intelligence activities to
go on. Positive authority stated in clear language has substantially
eliminated the uncertainties and inefficiencies of the past in the
collection and utilization of foreign intelligence and counterintelligence.
The enactment of legislation governing the conduct of electronic
surveillance in the U.S. has significantly improved U.S. intelligence
efforts since 1976. Prior to passage of the Foreign Intelligence Sur-
veillance Act of 1978 (PISA), electronic surveillance for foreign
intelligence purposes was carried out without judicial warrant under a
written delegation of authority from the President, upon the Attorney
General's approval and pursuant to procedures issued by him under circum-
stances that made Attorneys General reluctant to approve surveillance
except in the most compelling cases. Electronic surveillance abroad
today is conducted pursuant to such Presidential authority; however,
enactment and implementation of PISA governing electronic surveillance
in the U.S. has produced major legal, procedural and security benefits
to the U.S. foreign intelligence and counterintelligence efforts. PISA
generally provides for the collection of foreign intelligence or counter-
intelligence by means of electronic surveillance against a foreign power
or its agents upon issuance of a judicial order or, in some cases, a
certification by the Attorney General. This statutory authority enables
the Intelligence Community to obtain necessary foreign intelligence in a
variety of circumstances involving the national security or foreign
affairs of the U.S. Existence of a clear statutory basis has increased
the cooperation of communications common carriers to furnish necessary
information, facilities and technical assistance to accomplish the
authorized surveillance. It also should be noted that the existence of
PISA and its provisions reduce substantially the vulnerability of
Intelligence Community personnel to civil and criminal liability in the
application for and conduct of electronic surveillance operations within
the U.S. In general, PISA has been of major benefit to and has the
widespread support of agencies within the Intelligence Community.
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Several other factors have contributed to the Intelligence Community's
ability to carry out functions in the national interest. Previous
executive order provisions inhibiting assistance to law enforcement
agencies have been amended and Executive Order 12333 now clearly authorizes
cooperation to protect intelligence information, personnel and facilities;
to provide specialized equipment, technical knowledge or assistance of
expert personnel; to participate, unless otherwise precluded by law, in
law enforcement activities to investigate or prevent clandestine intelli-
gence activities by foreign powers, or international terrorist or narcotics
activities; and to render such other assistance not precluded by applicable
law.
The Community's ability to protect intelligence information
and the sources and methods of collection has been improved both by the
Executive Order and by passage of the Classified Information Procedures
Act of 1980. That Act provides special pre-trial and trial procedures
_._ to protect against the disclosure of classified information during any
criminal court case in Federal U.S. court. The Order makes it possible
to collect information abroad to protect sources and methods, and does
not limit such collection to obtaining information concerning employees
and other narrow categories of persons, as did the previous orders.
The ability to protect intelligence activities will further be
strengthened with enactment of the Intelligence Identities Protection
Act, which the House overwhelmingly passed recently. That Act makes it
a crime to identify a covert intelligence agent and, in effect, gives
renewed vitality to the responsibility of the DCI to protect intelligence
sources and methods from unauthorized disclosure.
Issue 5: Counterintelligence.
This issue was dealt with in my last letter.
Again, I have tried to err on the side of providing more detail
than you may need. I trust you will be as impressed as I have been in
seeing how far the Community has come in dealing with some of the issues
that concerned PFIAB six years ago. The next, and I hope final, report
should be ready later this week or early next week.
Sincerely,
Ls'a ~i~flalll J. ~c3S@,~'
~dilliam J. Casey
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DISTRIBUTION:
Copy No. 1 - Vice Chairman, PFIAB
2 - DCI
3 - DDCI
=; 4 - E R
5 - D/ICS
6 - C/NIC
7 - DDI
8-DDO
9 - C/IPC
10 - C/SECOM
11 - D/NIEPS
12 - C/ICS/CI
Staff
13 - C/IIHC
14 -,C/HRC
15 - Exec. Sec., NFIB/NFIC
16 - D/ICS/OP
17 - D/ICS/OPBC
18 - D/ICS/OA&E
19 - D/ICS/OCC
20 - D/ICS/OSC
21 - D/ICS/OIC&E
22 - SA-D/ICS
23 - ICS Registry
DCI/SA-D/IC
23 June 1982
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