Office of the Historian

412. Memorandum for the Record0

Washington, January 31, 1950.

SUBJECT

  • OSO–OPC Relationship

In conversation with Magruder and for part of the time with Joyce and Krentz, considerable discussion of the various facets of the problem was taken up. It was finally decided that both Magruder and Howe would try a hand at a paper which could be used as a modification of NSC 10/2, on the basis of which further discussions on the precise details could go forward not only between NME with State, but also with Hilly and Wisner.

The general principle on which the redraft of 10/2 should be based was that there would be one Assistant Director for Operations. Under the Assistant Director for Operations there would be three divisions:

1.
The Contacts Branch.
2.
A “rough stuff” branch which would plan sabotage, counter-sabotage, guerrilla activity and logistics for such activity, but would not carry out any operations itself. If operations of this nature were called for, they would be done under the clandestine operations area offices.
3.
Clandestine Operations Branch. This would combine the functions of espionage, counter-espionage, and those positive operations in the political, economic and psychological field, short of “rough stuff,” [Page 1060] which require the agent operation and covert techniques. This branch would in turn be subdivided into area sections, each section having in its complement both intelligence and operations people under a single area operations head.

It was a matter of indifference whether staff arms for plans, services, training and communications would be tied in at the Assistant Director level, or under the Branch Head for Clandestine Operations.

The really difficult point in drafting comes in expressing the degree and nature of control which the Department or the NME will have over the Operations Section. Magruder even had some idea that there should be sealed in the hands of the Executive Secretary, NSC, a secret protocol, pointing out that there would be a degree of autonomy on the part of the Assistant Director, Operations, which would permit him to be directly responsive to foreign policy and military affairs. This problem too is tied in very closely with the individuals who will be placed in controlling positions in CIA, but Magruder says that he felt that Johnson would accept a degree of control by the Department and we both felt that it would be possible to express this control in the revised NSC 10/2 which we would draft.

Fisher Howe 1
  1. Source: National Archives and Records Administration, RG 59, Records of the Department of State, Records of the Bureau of Intelligence and Research: Lot 58 D 776, State–CIA Relationship 1949–1956. Top Secret. Drafted by Howe. The source text indicates that a copy was sent to William J. Sheppard, one of the special assistants to the Secretary.↩
  2. Printed from a copy that bears this typed signature.↩