80. Memorandum From the Secretary of State’s Special Assistant for Research and Intelligence (McCormack) to the Under Secretary of State (Acheson)0
After listening to your statement this morning on the intelligence needs of the Department,1 I feel strongly that you ought, if you possibly can, to be a witness before the House Appropriations Committee and also before the Senate Committee, if a full development of our plans is necessary before that Committee.
I suspect that we will have a hard time convincing either Committee that we should add a thousand people to the State Department’s rolls. However, I do not think our estimate is padded or that the intelligence requirements can be met by a substantially smaller staff, especially in view of the certainty that G–2, A–2 and ONI will be doing less and less in intelligence analysis and research as their demobilization proceeds and budget problems catch up with them.
Your appearance before the Committees might be decisive in persuading them of the importance of accurate foreign information under present conditions and, still more important, of the Department’s lack of facilities for that purpose at the present time. I cannot do a good job on the latter point nor nearly as good a job as you can do on the former.
- 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, Birth of the Intelligence Organization in the Department of State. No classification marking. The memorandum bears the handwritten annotation, “I shall be glad to help in any way. DA.”↩
- Probably a reference to Acheson’s October 27 meeting with senior officers of the Department to discuss the newly established intelligence organization. See Acheson, Present at the Creation, pp. 159–160.↩