Foreign Relations of the United States, 1945–1950, Emergence of the Intelligence Establishment

350. Memorandum From Robert G. Barnes to William J. McWilliams of the Executive Secretariat⁰

Washington, August 25, 1948.

SUBJECT

• State Material for CIA

There is attached a draft memorandum covering the question of the transmission to the Central Intelligence Agency of State Department telegrams and the use which CIA makes of these telegrams.

I have discussed this problem at some length with Mr. Armstrong. He agrees that this is a vital question which urgently needs to be settled, and he shares my view that we probably cannot reach any agreement on it short of taking the question to the National Security Council. However, he feels that State should first raise this question with Admiral Hillenkoetter, in the presence of representatives of the Jackson–Dulles–Correa Committee. Should this approach fail to achieve agreement, we would then be in a better position to refer the matter to the NSC.

I agree entirely with the course of action suggested above. My recommendation is that, after you have gone over the attached draft and in the light of these suggestions, you might refer this paper to Mr. Armstrong for his specific comments. Whatever line of action we decide to take, I think it is important that we have very clearly in mind all aspects of the problem, the points which are essential to our position, and the counteroffers which might be proposed by CIA.

Mr. Armstrong is also of the opinion that we will encounter considerable resistance to any proposed limitation on the right of CIA to present State policy questions until such time as we publish, for dissemination at least to NSC members, a daily review of policy questions somewhat along the lines of our present top secret Daily Staff Summary. I have considerable reservations as to whether we can and should get into such an operation or whether it is not better to allow CIA to continue to operate to a limited extent in this field with a far more restricted distribution.

Attachment¹

Washington, undated.

Draft Memorandum

Problem: To determine appropriate Departmental policy for the distribution of policy information to the Central Intelligence Agency and the use to which the CIA may put this information.

Background: Ever since the establishment of the original Central Intelligence Group the State Department has been making available to that agency most of its daily telegrams, which are now supplied to the CIA through two channels:

1. Routine intelligence reports, press telegrams and the less sensitive policy matters are automatically distributed to CIA by the Division of Communications and Records. Exclusive of administrative and personnel matters, this distribution includes the major portion of our traffic. These telegrams are made available to all sections and divisions of the Central Intelligence Agency.

2. High level policy telegrams, top secret material and other sensitive matters are screened in S/S and, where appropriate, released to CIA. The majority of the telegrams falling into this category are released to CIA, though distribution of these within CIA is restricted to the office of the Director and to the research group.

The Unification Act makes the following provision with respect to the supplying of information to the Central Intelligence Agency:

“To the extent recommended by the National Security Council and approved by the President, such intelligence of the departments and agencies of the Government … relating to the national security shall be open to the inspection of the Director of Central Intelligence, and such intelligence as relates to the national security and is possessed by such departments and other agencies of the Government … shall be made available to the Director of Central Intelligence for correlation, evaluation, and dissemination.”

Although this issue has never specifically been raised in the National Security Council, the Department has always placed a very broad interpretation on this provision. We now supply CIA with all appropriate intelligence material and with most policy material, for the background information and guidance of the research analysts. It is not only difficult to draw a clear distinction between political and economic policy and intelligence matters, but the extensive use of cross references in our telegrams makes it difficult to withhold any considerable body of material without inviting charges that we are withholding it. The material actually withheld from CIA at present is limited to strictly personal matters and certain high policy questions which have not been fully resolved or are transmitted on an “eyes only” basis.²

It should be noted that the Departments of the Army and Navy have consistently placed a different interpretation on their obligations to CIA. In general they make available only such material as is available to their own intelligence divisions. This excludes almost all policy or operational questions and, in the case of the Army, most of the material handled by the Civil Affairs Division. The position of the Department of the Air Force, which is just beginning to set up its own cable channels, is not known.

Discussion: All of the material made available by the State Department to CIA is used in the preparation of their daily top secret summary, whether it is of a policy or of an intelligence nature. This leads to several distinct but closely related problems:

1. CIA frankly publishes their daily summary as an “operational” rather than as an “intelligence” publication. This means that while over 80 percent of all their material is derived from State Department sources, the emphasis in their daily summary is also heavy in the direction of State Department policy decisions and reports. There are some issues in which practically every item is the report of a State Department policy position (Tab A).³

2. CIA frequently attaches their own comment to items which appear in the daily summary. This occasionally tends to discredit the intelligence reporting of some of our missions and also leads to the situation where CIA comments (without the full benefit of all the policy considerations) on a State policy position. If the desired goal is the publication of a document revealing current State Department policy, it would seem more appropriate that this be published within State in close coordination with the policy offices; if the goal is a daily intelligence digest, CIA should not publish State policy positions.

3. The CIA daily receives too broad a circulation for a document reporting on top level State policy decisions. The current distribution list is attached (Tab B). In addition to the points of distribution, which have been set in consultation with Admiral Souers, CIA has reserved the right to give each recipient as many copies as he desires. On this basis the Chief of Naval Intelligence is currently receiving three copies, the Army Intelligence Division two, and so forth. State Department policy positions are thus being given a much wider circulation throughout the Government than was our original intention, and material which we deliberately do not make available to the various service intelligence agencies receives in this form a very wide distribution among them.

4. Furthermore, the CIA summary is receiving very wide distribution in the office of each recipient. There have been instances recently where outside agencies have requested that certain telegrams, identified in terms of items in the daily CIA summary, be made available to them. There is also some evidence that both the Army and the Air Force intelligence agencies have made further dissemination of State policy items available to them only through the CIA summary.

Recommendations: That we refer this whole question to the National Security Council with a view to:

1. Securing a uniform interpretation of the provision of the Unification Act relative to supplying material to CIA which would be equally applicable on all Departments.

2. Securing an NSC ruling on the type of daily summary to be published by the CIA, which ruling should stipulate either:

a. an operational summary, as at present, with the distribution limited to one copy only for each member of the National Security Council;

b. an intelligence summary only, with distribution maintained at the present level and any changes referred to the NSC.

0. Source: National Archives and Records Administration, RG 59, Records of the Department of State, Decimal File 1945–49, 101.5/8–2548. Top Secret; For State Department Officers Only. The date is from the Executive Secretariat receipt stamp on the source text.
1. Top Secret; For State Department Officers Only. Drafted by R.G. Barnes.
2. We have consistently taken the position with CIA that we are supplying them with all State Department material. In other words, CIA is not allowed to secure references or other direct evidence that material, other than personal communications, is ever being withheld from that agency. This should be clearly kept in mind in any discussions with CIA, since an admission that we are withholding material would allow them to shift the attack against us. As the record now stands, the performance of State is so much better than of Army or Navy that the best cards are in our hands for any possible negotiations. [Footnote in the source text.]
3. None of the tabs is printed.