Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, Volume XXXIII, Organization and Management of Foreign Policy; United Nations

242. Memorandum From the Deputy to the Director of Central Intelligence for National Intelligence Programs Evaluation (Bross) to Director of Central Intelligence Raborn¹

Washington, January 20, 1966.

SUBJECT

• DCI Appearance Before the PFIAB, 25 January

1. Proposed as item 1. for discussion with the PFIAB at their 25 January meeting:

Major problems affecting over-all coordination of the U.S. foreign intelligence effort, and prospects for their timely resolution.

2. Some of the more important problems of immediate interest are:

a. Improvement and strengthening of totality of intelligence effort in priority areas.

Probably the DCI’s most important responsibility in the coordinating field is to ensure a concerted intelligence effort, involving all existing or potential resources of the community, against priority targets. This problem has two elements:

(1) The first element of the problem is to determine what the priority objectives of intelligence ought to be. The procedures and competence of the community to accomplish this purpose have greatly improved in the course of the past few years and function smoothly. For example:

(a) USIB continues to review the list of Priority National Intelligence Objectives (PNIOs) every three months for the purpose of ascertaining the most important geographic areas of current intelligence interest.

(b) The Board of National Estimates reviews National Intelligence Estimates from time to time to ascertain retrospectively the validity of these estimates. These “Post Mortems” identify gaps which appear to have existed in the information available during the formulation of particular estimates.

(c) The attention of the community is directed to specific problems by senior officials of the Government concerned with the formulation of national policy. We are responding to an increasing number of requests from the Secretary of Defense, Secretary of State and others for coordinated studies, many of which involve concerted effort by the community. The most recent example of such a request, which involves an evaluation of our collective capabilities for intelligence coverage, is a request, addressed to me personally by the Secretary of Defense and concurred in by the Secretary of State, which calls for an expansion and intensification of intelligence programs aimed against Cambodia.

(d) In this general connection I have recently initiated a searching review of the process by which requirements are identified and formulated in the Central Intelligence Agency and will extend this study to include a review of the adequacy of community procedures in this field.

(2) The second element of the problem of achieving a concerted effort against an important target is the adequacy of the arrangements for reviewing and evaluating existing programs and activities of all components of the community; ensuring their appropriate interrelationship and stimulating additional activity, including the redeployment of existing resources and, where appropriate, the development of new resources. We have assigned this responsibility to the Critical Collection Problems Committee (CCPC) of USIB which functions as a senior committee under the Chairmanship of a senior and experienced staff officer, Major General John M. Reynolds. It was to this committee, for example, that the problem of evaluating and improving our intelligence effort against Cambodia, referred to above, was referred. Another area with which the CCPC has been particularly concerned recently is China. As part of its charter responsibilities, it has developed and maintains a complete inventory of all U.S. foreign intelligence installations and activities.

(3) The CCPC is not the total answer to the organization required to ensure appropriate focus and total coordination of the intelligence effort against a given target. This is partially because the CCPC is concerned exclusively with collection and is therefore not competent to deal with the analytical or production aspects of intelligence problems. Secondly, although functioning with increasing effectiveness, it is inevitably subject to some of the weaknesses of committee action. In important areas, therefore, requiring staff action to review all aspects of the intelligence effort in a given area, I have adopted the device of designating a senior officer to act as my personal representative. For example, I have designated General Reynolds to be responsible for a continuing review and evaluation of the intelligence effort focused on China. As required, I can appoint other members of my personal staff to act in this capacity or, if desirable, can assign qualified and senior officers of the community to this staff to serve as long as may be required.

b. Audio surveillance.²

The new committee which has been constituted to improve the community effort and resources required to counter hostile technical surveillance activities against American installations is functioning smoothly and effectively under the Chairmanship of Mr. Cornelius Roosevelt.

c. Programming and resource management.

For a number of reasons, it does not appear desirable or practical to try to combine the budgets and programs of the Central Intelligence Agency with the intelligence budgets and programs of the Defense Department into a single consolidated intelligence program or budget presentation. On the other hand, the DCI has participated with increasing effectiveness in the formulation of the two large Defense Department intelligence programs, the Consolidated Cryptologic Program (CCP) and the Consolidated Intelligence Program (CIP). As a result of this participation, the DCI is now able to afford rather specific and effective guidance to the Defense Department concerning the level of effort required to meet important intelligence objectives. A very thorough review of requirements for COMINT has recently been completed and recommendations are now pending before USIB which, if adopted, will establish USIB as the sole source of intelligence guidance for COMINT programming. The DCI of course participates through the Executive Committee of the NRO in the development of the NRP.

In addition to participation in the formulation of the large individual intelligence programs of the Government, the DCI has, on an informal basis, proceeded with the centralized collection and collation of data concerning the size, deployment and objectives of all the national intelligence programs of the Government.

3. An organizational development of interest which relates to the coordinating responsibilities of the DCI concerns the Board of National Estimates. As the Board is the vehicle for achieving coordinated estimates it performs a coordinating function of the highest importance. In view of the ever increasing pressures on the DCI and the community to provide national intelligence estimates on a variety of strategically important subjects, I have recently established the Board as a separate component of CIA, reporting directly to me.³ The Board will of course continue to function in very close collaboration with the DDI and the substantive intelligence components which are under the DDI.⁴

John A. Bross

1. Source: Central Intelligence Agency, Executive Registry, Job 80–B01676R, PFIAB Committee 1966. Secret.
2. For documentation on the issue of audio surveillance, see Foreign Relations, 1964–1968, volume X .
3. The Office of the Director issued a notice on January 20 stating that, “effective immediately, the Board and Office of National Estimates are established as a component reporting directly to the Director of Central Intelligence” and thus no longer through the DDI. (Central Intelligence Agency, DDI Files: Job 80–B01439R, Organization-DDI-1966–67) The change followed by just a few days R. Jack Smith’s accession to the position of DDI, replacing Ray Cline. Smith discusses the change in The Unknown CIA, p. 171.
4. A handwritten note underneath the last line reads: “DDI&OCI Op’s Center.”