120. Memorandum From the Assistant Director of National Estimates of
the Central Intelligence Agency (Kent) to the Deputy Director of Intelligence of the
Central Intelligence Agency (Becker)1
Washington, July 1, 1952.
SUBJECT
- The Problem of Scientific and Technical Intelligence
- 1.
- Herewith some thoughts on the problem of scientific and technical
intelligence which are pretty close to convictions with me.
- 2.
- Without in any way trying to derogate the importance and the
extraordinary difficulty of your administrative problems, let me
repeat that had O/NE not had the
assistance of O/SI in drafting the
text of SIE–5,2 that estimate would have been a quite different
and far, far less useful document. In fact, it is my belief that
without O/SI’s interpretation of the
evidence and with no corrective for service interpretation of the
evidence, C/NE could have done nothing but accept the service
interpretation which in the light of what I learned from O/SI would have been an over-reassuring
one.
- 3.
- Obviously this is for your private eye and just as obviously if I
give it any further circulation it will be to Washington Platt on an
“Eyes Only” basis.
Attachment4
Some Thoughts on the Problem of Scientific and
Technical Intelligence
- 1.
- In any country’s security system there are elements upon which
the country in question places great store. These are truly its
secrets of security.
- 2.
- Generally speaking these secrets of security if they are not
in themselves scientific and technical at least rest on
scientific and technological developments. Ask yourself:
Knowledge of what twenty US secrets of security would I be most
concerned to keep from the USSR? How many of the twenty really lie outside the
scientific/technical area?
- 3.
- The importance which a country attaches to any of these
elements in its security system is an index of that country’s
desire to keep them secret from all outsiders. Thus the more
important they are the more difficult they become as
intelligence targets.
- 4.
- The security measures in operation in the USSR have been peculiarly
successful in the scientific/technical areas. It would be my
guess that in no part of our knowledge of Soviet secrets of
security is the ratio of fixed points to voids so large. In the
matter of the gadgets around which Soviet air defense
capabilities are built, the paucity of fixed points is dramatic
in the extreme.
- 5.
- In the last analysis the mission of intelligence is to draw
the meaningful and objective generalization from the data.
- a.
- If the data, or fixed points, are numerous and the
voids between them small, then meaningful, objective,
and probably correct generalizations can be
drawn.
- b.
- If the data, or fixed points, are few and the voids
between them large, meaningful generalizations can still
be drawn. But who is to say that they are objective
and/or probably correct? Who is to say they are anything
but pure fiction?
- 6.
- In case 5b above, the generalizer, minimally confined and
directed by fixed points, may be engulfed by forces wholly
extraneous to the problem at hand. It is here that he may be
consciously or unconsciously taken over by his hopes, his
wishes, and his fears, or by those of his friends or the
institution he works for. (I refer you to the men who have
designed maps of the heavens and who have generalized the
muscular Orion and his club, belt, and lion skin from a dozen or
so stars.) What he comes up with is something far different from
and usually far more or less than the meager suggestions of the
fixed points. The added something is not from the data; it is
from him.
- 7.
- As long as the national intelligence community can fix only
relatively few points in key scientific and technical
developments of the USSR and as
long as the voids between these points are very large,
generalizations by any single individual or single intelligence
institution may be dangerously skewed by individual wish or
institution policy.
- 8.
- Ask yourself: “What would I wish if my future were interwoven
with that of one of the armed services?” You would wish to be a
part of the best damn outfit of its sort in existence—an outfit
that could deliver enough lethal power to destroy any enemy in a
single attack and do it without losing a man.
- 9.
- Ask yourself the next question: What do I do to get my wish?”
If you are in intelligence you may do two things.
- a.
- To assure yourself that your service will get the
funds to make it the best damn outfit of its sort in
existence you will not play down the enemy. You will
build him up, especially in gross terms of his offensive
capability.
- b.
- To assure yourself that once you’ve got the best damn
outfit in the world, it will carry out its mission you
begin to take away from the enemy. You will take away
notably in the area of his defensive capabilities. You
are not quite so certain to do this as to build up his
offensive capabilities, because of the perils involved.
You know that if you significantly undervalue his
defensive capabilities and plans are drawn upon your
evaluation your service may be cruelly hurt in the
clash. You finally fix the point of his defensive
capabilities at the place where the curve of your wish
intersects the curve of your fear. The fixed points are
so few that you can easily draw your curves to
accommodate them.
- 10.
- When you have done these two things you have done little more
than describe the ideal enemy; the enemy big enough to warrant
the perfection of your outfit, but an enemy who is nevertheless
a pushover in a showdown.
- 11.
- You can do this in the field of scientific and technical
intelligence on the USSR, and
no one can say you may [nay?] so long as
the ratio of fixed points to voids remains what it is.
- 12.
- The above is a long way of spelling out my doubts as to the
virtues of assigning to given departmental intelligence
organizations a
[Page 293]
“primary” responsibility in any of the specific areas of
scientific and technical intelligence. All along I have feared
the generalizations, say, that ONI may make of the fixed points and voids re
Soviet underwater warfare techniques, that G–2 may make re Soviet tank design,
that A–2 may make re Soviet GCI and A–2 radar and AAA. I have
however been somewhat comforted by realizing that if any single
service comes up with a wishful generalization, this
generalization may be opposed to the wish of another service;
that the other service will possess all the data of the first
and that it will be capable of drawing its own variant or
opposing generalization.
- 13.
- If a service is duly invested with “primary” responsibility
and if at the same time it possesses sources of information
which it may or may not share with other services and if it
chooses not to share, the chances of another service developing
a variant or opposing generalization have shrunk considerably
and may have shrunk to approximate zero.
- 14.
- We are in a position today where we cannot anticipate either
(a) a dramatic decrease in the ratio of voids to fixed points in
the area of scientific and technical developments in the USSR or (b) a dramatic change in
human nature. As long as we do not take out insurance against
the acceptance of a generalization that must perforce partake
heavily of the wish, we are asking for trouble. If I were
carrying the statutory responsibilities of the DCI the minimum insurance I would
take out would be as follows:
- a.
- Keep O/SI in business
pretty much as it is today—even endeavor to strengthen
some of its divisions. The ones I would strengthen would
be those dealing with the most important subject matter
irrespective of whether another agency had been awarded
“primary” responsibility in this subject matter.
- b.
- Set up a machinery to insure that no one
scientific/technical intelligence outfit withheld
information which it may have developed and which it
found useful in drawing its own generalizations.
