Foreign Relations of the United States, 1950–1955, The Intelligence Community, 1950–1955

169. Director of Central Intelligence Directive 15/1¹

Washington, February 4, 1954.

RESPONSIBILITY FOR PRODUCTION OF ECONOMIC INTELLIGENCE: SOVIET BLOC²

Pursuant to the provisions of NSCID–1, NSCID–3, and NSCID–15,³ and for the purpose of strengthening the over-all governmental intelligence structure for the production of economic intelligence on the Soviet Bloc, the following policies and allocations are hereby established:

1. Policies

1.1 In discharging allocated responsibilities and effecting integration of economic intelligence, the interested departments and agencies will apply the following basic principles:

a. No complete separation of areas of interest is possible or necessarily desirable in economic intelligence activities.

b. Full and free interchange of all intelligence information and finished intelligence and schedules of research programs, including external research, between all agencies concerned is essential.

c. No one agency is considered to be the final authority in any field; conclusions may be questioned by other IAC agencies and dissents recorded.

1.2 An agency charged with primary responsibility in a particular field will develop special competence in that field and will normally carry out most of the research in that field.

1.3 Any agency may make such studies as it believes necessary to supplement intelligence obtained from other agencies in order to fulfill its departmental functions; however, basic research studies should not normally be undertaken without prior discussion with the agencies having primary responsibility for the subject matter involved.

1.4 Each intelligence agency will endeavor to coordinate the intelligence activities of its technical services and its other facilities having economic intelligence production capabilities with the work of the IAC intelligence agencies and to make available to those agencies the intelligence produced by such services and facilities.

2. Responsibility for Economic Intelligence Production

2.1 Responsibility for research and for the production of economic intelligence on the Soviet Bloc is allocated as follows:

a. The Department of State shall have primary responsibility for those aspects of intelligence production in which economic and political analysis are interdependent. It will produce intelligence on economic policy and politico-economic trends and will undertake such other analyses and studies as may be required in fulfilling its assigned primary production responsibilities.

b. The Department of Defense shall have primary responsibility for the production of intelligence on the military aspects of the economy. They will produce intelligence on military requirements, logistics, ships and ship movements, and on production of military end items, and will undertake such other analyses and studies as may be required in fulfilling their assigned primary production responsibilities.

c. The CIA shall have primary responsibility, as a service of common concern, for intelligence production on all aspects and all sectors of the economy, except for those specified in 2.1 (a) and (b). With full recognition given to the intelligence produced by other agencies, it shall supplement this intelligence by such independent analyses and studies as may be necessary to produce integrated economic intelligence on the total economy of the Soviet Bloc.

2.2 It is recognized that, despite the above-mentioned allocations of primary production responsibilities, there will be areas of common or overlapping interest which require continuing interagency liaison and such working-level conferences as may be appropriate.

3. Responsibility for Economic Intelligence Coordination

3.1 To assist the Central Intelligence Agency is carrying out its coordinating responsibility, the Economic Intelligence Committee shall continue to perform the functions outlined in IAC D–22/1 (revised).⁴

3.2 In accordance therewith, the Economic Intelligence Committee shall, upon request of the Office of National Estimates, prepare coordinated contributions to comprehensive estimates of Soviet Bloc Capabilities scheduled in the approved program of National Intelligence Estimates.⁵

1. Source: National Archives, RG 59, INR Historical Files: Lot 58 D 776, DCI Directives. Confidential. A typed note reads: “Agreed text CIA/State 2/5/54.” For a revised version of this directive, see Document 191.
2. The term “Soviet Bloc” as used in this Directive covers the USSR; Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Rumania, Bulgaria, Albania, East Germany; Communist China and North Korea. Supplements to this directive may reduce this coverage or extend it to other areas under Soviet domination, if such modification is warranted. [Footnote in the original.]
3. For NSCID No. 1, see Document 256; for NSCID No. 3, see Foreign Relations, 1945–1950, Emergence of the Intelligence Establishment, Document 426; for NSCID No. 15, see Document 254.
4. Document 72.
5. Printed from an unsigned copy.